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Author: u/fordgrantorino
URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-a-new-home/202302/a-surprising-secret-to-happiness-intense-emotions

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Higher peak levels of well being or higher average well being across time? It’s a real big difference.

Nice I must have reached peak happiness with my intense depression emotions!

Hm, it seems to me like a rather limited view of well-being.

Article says:

>Happy people, compared to those with a mental illness (e.g., anxiety, depression), are better able to adapt because they experience emotional reactions that are appropriate for the stimulus—**avoidance when facing unpleasant or threatening stimuli, and approach when facing pleasant or pleasurable stimuli**.

That mention of mindfulness in the article is strange in this context, considering that one of the points of mindfulness meditation (and buddhism as a whole) is to diminish the impact of aversion or attachment.

There's a book worth checking out--The Language of Emotions by Karla McClaren.

I helped put on a workshop of hers last year and even just being the tech it really broke me wide open and helped explain what I, as an avoidant person was missing.

That ability to just name emotions, go through them safely, bring them to the foreground etc.

It starts off a little woo woo but just stick with it.

Not sure. I experience very strong emotions, both negative and positive (although I do have control of my reactions.)

I love life and the world, but I'm Stil pretty darn depressed.
Which is mostly by circumstance I suppose.

My borderline schizoaffective narcissist and anxious self will tell you to f---- off about that conclusion

So go ahead, keep crying Reddit!!

So the pickup artists were right after all.

High highs and very, very low lows

I love experiencing my emotions. Emotions are great visitors but you never let them spend the night and you always have to clean up after them. But I love experiencing my emotions.

The world's Zen Buddhists may find this conclusion unsettling.

You should have (all the) emotions. But they should never have you.

I don't understand how you can reach that conclusion

The most unhappy people experience very intense emotional pains. The happiest people have high happiness set-point or equilibrium point without a huge rollercoaster of emotions from there. If we take a severely depressed person and decrease his/her negative emotions to a big extent with heroin, it makes them way happier (as long as heroin is working of course)

>emotional reactions that are appropriate for the stimulus—avoidance when facing unpleasant or threatening stimuli, and approach when facing pleasant or pleasurable stimuli.

Then industrial strength meditation practitioners should be less happy because they reduced aversion and desire

Woman without amygdala, known as S.M. patient:

>In addition, S.M. appears to experience relatively little negative emotion, whilst simultaneously experiencing a relatively high degree of positive affect, despite great adversity in her life. Accordingly, she tends to be very positive about most people, situations, and issues.

I guess she lacks the secret to happiness

Bipolar mf's enter the chat

Stoicists in shambles