Pathlight : Happiness
Originally from the U.S., Annie earned her Canadian Citizenship in 2013. Annie & her Husband live in Pic River First Nation. Annie Wenger-Nabigon, MSW, RSW has been a cinical social worker since 1979 working in mental health, family therapy, and addictions services. She is a doctoral candidate at Laurentian University in Sudbury, ON. She works full-time as an Adult Mental Health and Addictions Therapist at the Marathon office of North of Superior Counseling Programs. Annie also works part-time as a consultant for LYNX, owned by her husband Herb Nabigon, MSW. Herb provides traditional Anishnabek teachings and healing workshops for both Native and non-Native organizations. Together he and Annie provide training and education to professionals on a wide range of topics blending mainstream and traditional approaches in healing. They also provide cultural safety and anti-racism training.
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Happiness
Author of Pathlight; Annie Wenger-Nabigon, MSW, RSW
Can people feel sad and happy at the same time? I believe so. It is entirely possible to hold many different, and sometimes conflicting, emotions within us at the same time. In fact, one of the definitions of mental health is to be able to contain opposites within us simultaneously, to hold these conflicting views and tensions and contain our reactions to them, and to move forward making conscious, realistic choices about how to express and deal with those tensions. “All or nothing” thinking is not mentally healthy.
Does being happy mean we have mental health? Not necessarily. It is entirely possible to be fully sane and mentally healthy yet experience deep unhappiness about something in our life. To be mentally healthy does not mean we will never feel distress, or troubling emotions. That seems to be an aspect of the human condition which simply tells us we are fully experiencing life in all its variations, positive and negative.
So what is happiness? Some people say that no one can feel happy all the time. Others say that we choose happiness, and therefore unhappiness is also our choice. Many people believe that it is necessary to feel pain and suffering in order to fully experience happiness. Is happiness just an emotion, a fleeting state of mind, something difficult to find?
I think happiness is the normal state for a human being to live in, and that to be unhappy is to be in a state of imbalance – to be unable to accept a negative reality. To be unhappy means that I experience discontent and dissatisfaction, and any range of negative emotions which prevent me from being in a state of contentment. To BE an unhappy person is not the same thing as to FEEL an emotion of sadness. Sadness is something I can feel in response to an experience I have – it is not a condition which defines my identity. I can be contented with my life and accept reality around me as it is, even when it is not necessarily completely desirable, and still feel sad. That is not the same thing as “being unhappy”. It is not a permanent condition but is a fluid aspect of life which is constantly changing.
When a baby is born it cries to express its need for care. The baby cares for itself enough to cry for attention to its needs. That is healthy self-love of the infant, and something is wrong when a baby can’t cry. If no one responds to the cry of the baby and comes to care and comfort the infant or child that also indicates something is wrong in the social network around the child. If someone purposefully hurts a child to make the child suffer, something seriously evil is happening. Some people mistakenly believe it is right to punish children and purposefully cause physical pain in order to teach them something, but this is very wrong, and even illegal in many cases. It is wrong to cause pain to a child for any reason, yet children often cry even when they have not been physically or emotionally hurt. Crying is a form of healing, of caring for ourselves.
We all need care in our lives, and none of us can get through life alone. Often if we are sad, it is because we are in grief, we have lost someone or something which was very important to us. It doesn’t really matter what that might be – a job, a loved one, or a possession – if it is gone and we can’t accept that right away, then we need care and comfort. We need to be allowed to grieve, to cry, and feel what we feel. We don’t need to be rejected or criticised or punished for our sadness. Being sad doesn’t necessarily mean we are a basically unhappy person.
Generally, unhappy people are people whose social network is failed in some way, or they are suffering from some form on a mental illness, or they simply haven’t learned how to be happy. The care which is necessary for the human being to learn balance is absent. Happiness, or unhappiness, is not an individual job. It takes a whole village to create happy people. People who have unhappiness as part of their identity are often people who have suffered a great deal from the wounds of a lack of appropriate care in their lives, and they have not yet learned how to let go of their suffering. Becoming mentally healthy involves the work of letting go of unhappiness, and the work of practicing an “attitude of gratitude”.
Happiness truly IS an inside job. My inside responsibility, which I must exercise if I want to be a happy person, is to work on contentment, acceptance, and on reaching out for care and support. If I isolate myself, indulge in anger and resentment, and refuse to accept support, I prolong my own sadness and unhappiness. Sometimes no matter what a person does, the baby cries. Maybe it has colic. Maybe it feels pain and can’t tell us where. Maybe the distress is pure physical or nervous imbalance which adults just don’t know how to help. It is the same with unhappy people. Maybe they just need to feel the pain for a while before they can rebalance, and when things shift inside of them they will be able to let go of the sadness and experience happiness again, even though the losses are part of reality.
Happiness is our birthright. Have you ever seen a child smile and laugh and respond by reaching out to someone who is smiling and comforting them? Smiling through the tears is common for children, but somewhere along the way we adults learn that it is not ok to have the tears. I think that’s one reason why we lose the happiness. We can feel both sadness and happiness at the same time, cry through the tears, reach out to the arms around us, and be content with what we have even when we have lost something tender and special. It is normal to feel sadness. It is normal to feel happy. Happiness is a normal, healthy part of life and we can choose it over unhappiness whenever we are ready to let go. We let go when we know it is safe. Contentment, safety, happiness – it all goes hand-in-hand. We just have to reach out for it and accept it, no matter how sad or sick we may feel at the moment.
Happiness IS our normal state of identity – our human right!
Annie Wenger-Nabigon, MSW, RSW
Pathlight@OntarioNewsNorth.com
ANNIE RECOMMENDS:
- The Hollow Tree by Herb Nabigon
- EldersTeachings.blogspot.com
- Pathlight: Journey to a Good Life archives
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*Health themed columns found on OntarioNewsNorth.com provide general information about medical conditions and treatments. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. If you have any specific questions about any mental health or other medical matter, please consult your family physician, primary health care team or other professional healthcare provider.Opinions and information contained in any column on OntarioNewsNorth.com are not intended to replace medical advice from your doctor or other professional health care provider. If you feel you are suffering from a mental or physical health issue, you should seek medical attention immediately. The information shared in this column or anywhere on OntarioNewsNorth.com does not constitute medical advice nor should any person delay seeking, disregard or discontinue medical treatment because of information contained in PATHLIGHT: Journey to a Good Life or on OntarioNewsNorth.com. The opinions provided by contributors on OntarioNewsNorth.com do not necessarily reflect those of OntarioNewsNorth.com its advertisers or other contributors on the site.
