Why I dont go along with the "happiness" crowd

by Junction-Guy 83 Replies latest jw friends

  • Happy Harvester
    Happy Harvester

    Hi JG. Excellent thread.

    How I'm "painted" by others has nothing to do with who I am, unless I internalize the painting.

    Unfortunately for those born-in, the painting often scars.

    We have a responsibility to ourselves to find happiness in whatever way we can and to avoid suffering.

    I find that very, very challenging to do, as a direct result of being brought up a JW by emotionally disturbed family, but I still haven't given up althoghether.

    It's hard.

    Kudos for your efforts, and for everyone's, regardless of paradigms.

    Edited to say that I shall carry this thought with me as much as possible:

    A life dedicated to love and peace has to be better than a life dedicated to revenge and conflict.

    Thanks, nvr!

  • wanderlustguy
    wanderlustguy

    You gotta do what you gotta do. My way isn't gonna be your way.

    I was on the way to where Junction Guy is, but then the realization hit that it's just more time they take from me and my family, for very little chance of any return. Head on won't work on them, never will. The only thing that will work eventually is more information and education, but it does no good if the message is presented in a way that shuts the programmed mind off before it can even take the information in.

    It doesn't mean I don't appreciate the effort, no matter how it is done.

    WLG

  • tnangel73
    tnangel73

    OK, so let me get this straight... If I had a shitty childhood as a witness (and trust me, I did), I should then spend the rest of my free life going around feeling sad in order to rub my sadness in my parent's face.. This will somehow "prove" to them that they hurt me.

    I'm sorry, I choose not to that. I choose to be happy and welcome each and every day with open arms.

    You and you alone have the power to make yourself happy or miserable. This is a fact. You can allow external factors to color your mood or not. Our feelings come from our thoughts. Happy thoughts=happy feelings. It really is that simple.

    You have no control over what other people do, you do have control over how you feel.

    You might want to check out this book: Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns.

    You CAN be happy. Make the choice.

    I am not picking at you, seriously, but that is pretty simplified.

    I wish it were all that simple.

    And I do for the most part think positively most of the time.

    BUT (you had to know that was coming )

    Thinking happy thoughts is not going to take the cancer away from my Mother. It's not going to take away my Father's ahlzeimer's disease.

    It doesn't take away the financial strain on me that they didn't save anything for their retirement because "this old world" was going to end soon.

    And a lot of other problems that I am not going to bother to list.

    Wallowing in the misery isn't the answer, but just "putting on a happy face," isn't feasable in some situations.

    I have been pretty pissed off the last year. But it's mostly because I've let myself be that way. I won't be this way forever, but right now I am.

    When I was a dub everything was about suppressing your emotions and putting on that fake witnoid smile.

    Sorry for the semi-rant.

  • bisous
    bisous

    Junction Guy, the other day I was listening to NPR and there was a segment on *Happiness* that reminded me of your earlier thread...basically the premise was that everyone deals with life's stresses differently. The power of positive thinking and striving for some preconceived notion of happiness does not work for everyone, and furthermore is highly unrealistic.

    This wasn't discussed in a *downer* sort of way ... just a much more pragmatic take on what to expect from the day to day life experience, particularly when recovering from trauma or abuse.

    If you have an MP3 player, you can listen to this segment here http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4714604


    I also enjoyed this segment on creating your own happiness http://sammyland.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3DDEAF8AD1B84339!1312.entry

    Lastly, 6 Tips to Acquiring more happiness http://sammyland.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3DDEAF8AD1B84339!1312.entry


    enjoy!

  • Happy Harvester
    Happy Harvester

    tnangel - I totally agree. Life is challenging. Putting on a happy face if you need therapy and meds and have a sicko family isn't going to be the only way to "be happy."

    You gotta' be where you are to get where you're going.

    bedtime for the unbalanced one.

    nigthy-night

  • John Doe
    John Doe

    Focusing your energies constructively is far different from "putting on a happy face." You're over simplifying.

  • tnangel73
    tnangel73

    Apoligies that I got off topic.

    JD- changling had said

    "Our feelings come from our thoughts. Happy thoughts=happy feelings. It really is that simple."

    My point was that there are also outside contributers that affect our emotions. I guess I have reached a conundrum. Yes, I did over-simplify things, also. Happy thoughts just don't take away one's problems.

  • carla
    carla

    It doesn't have to be all consuming or even like fs. A conversation here or there, a flier left around somewhere or take a few minutes on your way somewhere and deliver a few to paperboxes. A letter to a newsource when something big is going on takes only a few moments to do. Most people here say they would like to see the watchtower come down but will do very little to facilitate it. When there is a chance that the abuse cases could make it on national television and people won't take 5 minutes to write an email that's just sad. If more people were aware of the shunning, abuses, and parental abandonment to name a few they would never join in the first place.

    It is possible to do both, be happy and have a wonderful life and let others know about the dangers of the wt once and awhile. We do make a choice in life as always or do we? I have seen answers here that imply the jw has no choice when treating family like shit but once you are out you have the choice to allow your fellow man get mixed up in this awful cult? That is a choice you make, you make a conscious decision not to warn your neighbors about the cult knocking on their doors.

    You needn't get on a soapbox for all to see, it doesn't have to be all out or nothing. Just small little things that won't tax you too much in time, money or energy. Heck I have even gotten up early on one of my get in shape phases and delivered to paperboxes in the dark. There are many different things you guys can do, and sometimes those who have real power to expose the cult need to hear from those who have actually experienced it. I understand about those who do not want to be found there are ways around that too, leave a flier in a bathroom nobody will see you. And never underestimate how compelling the stories here are to non jw's. They are shocked and appalled and tell their family or friends and often they come back to me and have a jw story for me.... 'a big jehovah came by and I told them...' Nevermind they call them 'big jehovah's' many people do, they think they are the really zealous ones who are knocking on the doors.

    You can be happy and let others know, in fact in can give you pleasure and a mild sense of accomplishment that you did something, anything to warn a few people about an evil, destructive and deadly cult that is knocking on their door hoping their family will repeat the hellish lives many of you have lived by joining.

  • lisavegas420
    lisavegas420

    I don't believe anyone is happy 24\7. Happiness comes in moments of time..not continuesly. I have to be grateful and cherish those moments. The more I think about those happy moments...the more happy moments I have. Then..I'm manisfesting happy moments and my own life.

    JG...you seem to be stuck in the same place of healing since I met you.

    lisa

  • Happy Harvester
    Happy Harvester
    Focusing your energies constructively is far different from "putting on a happy face." You're over simplifying.

    A very good point. Focus is extremely important. On the other hand, I remember being in labor shortly before a Cesarian section due to my daughter's imminent breech birth, and the nurses kept telling me to "focus on the red dot" (pasted to the ceiling) to help me with the pain. Okeeodkeee! I screamed,"F*ck the red dot." I was surprised to see how astonished some of those nurses were, as if they'd never heard such a thing. C'mon! That was a delivery nurse? The anaesthesiologist eventually showed up . . .

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