As living organisms, we are designed to move in the direction of pleasure and to move away from pain. Our entire nervous system is highly attuned to pain stimulus and pleasure stimulus. Most of us love to feel happy and we will do anything to avoid feeling unhappy, but what about the small percentage of people who can’t feel happy? It is easy to think that happiness is always a good thing. But the truth is, the subconscious mind does not always agree.

In this episode, Teal explains that when we cannot feel happy no matter how hard we try and we feel as if happiness is false and only negative emotions are real, what is really happening is that we have learned to FEAR happiness. We think that Happiness is dangerous; most often because we have been blindsided by emotional, mental or physical pain when we were enjoying ourselves. And perhaps even more than that, we have repeatedly been blindsided by emotional, mental or physical pain when we were enjoying ourselves. Basically, what is happening for many people who cannot be happy is that the very feeling of joy and happiness itself becomes the trigger for a posttraumatic stress response. Why is this a problem? It is a problem because you are now fighting with your own survival instinct to be happy. The wires in your own mind have become crossed to such a degree that your own being is trying to keep you feeling good by keeping you from feeling good.

In this episode, Teal offers some tips that can help those of us who are “triggered” by happiness to become comfortable with happiness again.

Kuan Yin's Mantra (c) 2002 Lisa Thiel - used by permission http://www.sacreddream.com