This post is based on actual events, but the referenced client is an amalgam of people and/or a fictional person in order to protect therapist-client confidentiality.
One of my favorite clients was also one of my most challenging clients. I nicknamed her Palm Beach because she came with:
a designer wardrobe
a four bedroom/3 bath house
a 200K a year salary
a gorgeous husband
and a fancy car.
Palm Beach had the things I wanted, so it was surprising to hear why she sought out therapy:
“There’s no happiness in my life,” she uttered as her red sole shoes dangled from her feet.
My immediate thought?
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Just to be clear, I didn’t say “You’ve got to be kidding me” out loud, but it was there on the tip of my tongue.
Thankfully, my psychology training allowed me to be cognizant of personal bias because holy hell, my personal biases were screaming.
When you grow up in poverty as I did, houses, fancy cars, and nice clothes became something tangible to work towards. It was ingrained in me by teachers, family members, commercials, magazines, and well, everyone really.
Car commercials in the 1980s showed happy, good-looking people driving expensive cars and going to fabulous places with other happy, good-looking people.
It’s 2023, and not much has changed.
When you’re living in scarcity and you’re unhappy about it, all you have to do is buy an expensive car and hang out with good-looking people, and happiness will come.
At least that is what everyone told me.
So, as Palm Beach explained how there wasn’t any happiness in her life, I checked my personal bias while dressed in clothes from Goodwill, with a ten-year-old car in the parking lot, and a cramped one-bedroom apartment to go home to.
And then I asked her to explain what happiness is.
She thought for a few seconds and replied, “Feeling joyful.”
I then asked her to define joy.
“You know, feeling happy.”
So I stood up, pulled my dictionary off the shelf, and asked her to read this aloud:
happiness
noun [ U ]
US
/ˈhæp·i·nəs/
the feeling of being pleased or happy
“Happiness is a noun (a person, place, or thing) and is a term used to identify the process of that emotion,” I said.
She looked confused, so we looked up the word happy:
happy
adjective
US
/ˈhæp·i/
happy adjective (PLEASED)
feeling, showing, or causing pleasure or satisfaction
I gave Palm Beach a moment to read the definition and then asked her if she knew what an adjective is.
She looked at me like I had four heads, but she replied, “A word that describes something.”
“Right. So when was the last time you felt happy?” I asked.
“Last week, when my project was selected for an award.”
“How long did that happiness last?”
“For a few days. I was really happy about all of the recognition I got, and I was proud of my work product.”
“So would you say that ‘happiness’ and ‘joy’ have a beginning and an end? A time when you feel those emotions and a time when you don’t?”
“Absolutely!”
Then she looked at me, stunned.
Before I could even say anything, she exclaimed, “Oh my God! I’ve been looking at things all wrong. There is happiness in my life! I’m just noticing when I’m not on that high of intense happiness. You’re fucking brilliant!”
If only.
Happiness, sadness, fear. We all feel them, but we don’t feel them with the same intensity each time.
For example, I feel sad when someone says something hurtful to me, but it’s a whole different level of sad when a loved one passes away.
Do you see the difference?
This shift in perspective allowed Palm Beach to realize that when we don’t feel major joy all the time (like how she felt with her work project award), we make overgeneralizations like “There’s no happiness in my life.”
All you’re feeling is the absence of the desired emotion (and its intensity).
Happiness may come as an ebb, a flow, a trickle, or, if we’re lucky, a gush.
But it’s available to us whenever we want. We just have to seek it out.
“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
Be well,
Kim
Wow wow wow. Reading this felt like a breath of fresh air this morning.
Thank you ~