{"id":71496,"date":"2022-07-10T06:10:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T10:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=71496"},"modified":"2022-07-20T08:22:52","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T12:22:52","slug":"how-to-express-yourself-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-express-yourself-better\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Express Yourself Better: The Happiness Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you struggle to express your emotions? How can expressing yourself better improve your life? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Glennon Doyle asserts that you are taught by society not to feel anything, to avoid emotion and pain at all costs. Numbing yourself keeps you in captivity, but you can evolve and challenge the status quo<\/a> when you break free of this conditioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read on to learn more about society’s impact on emotions and how to express yourself better in daily life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Embracing Emotion and Growing<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Doyle’s determination to feel it all without fear was crucial for her recovery. As she became sober, she felt all of her emotions without anything to numb the pain, but she realized that feeling these emotions did not destroy her. (Shortform note: In giving up her coping mechanisms, Doyle was able to clearly see her resilience\u2014a common, and uplifting, experience for people in addiction recovery. In <\/em>We Are The Luckiest<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Laura McKowen writes that she feels lucky<\/em> to have struggled with addiction because recovery allowed her to know what she was capable of.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A woman Doyle met at her AA group encouraged her and helped her realize that it\u2019s not wrong to experience painful emotions; happiness is not the goal of life<\/a>.<\/strong> Rather, embracing all <\/em>of your emotions should be your objective when learning how to express yourself better. The realization that she should<\/em> feel negative emotions was a revelation for Doyle: It contradicted long-held beliefs that she was always<\/em> supposed to feel happy and that feeling negative emotions meant something was wrong with her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Falling Into the Happiness Trap<\/strong>

Like Doyle, you may feel weighed down by the expectation that you are always supposed to feel happy. Research suggests that there\u2019s a reason that you feel burdened by this expectation\u2014you\u2019re not wired<\/em> to feel happy all the time<\/strong>. 

In The Happiness Trap<\/em><\/a>, Russ Harris explains that humans are actually wired for survival<\/em>\u2014detecting and avoiding threats, prioritizing group acceptance, and constantly seeking to improve their circumstances. Happiness is not our natural state.<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>When you try to be happy<\/a> all the time, you engage in a constant fight against your evolutionary inclinations. The futility of this endeavor creates a \u201chappiness trap\u201d: Your quest for happiness makes you more <\/em>unhappy in the long term.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By avoiding pain, Doyle had stopped progressing and had limited her potential. She became stronger when she faced these painful emotions and didn’t look away. She realized that she could use painful emotions to grow and evolve\u2014to become truly alive.<\/strong> Doyle defines being \u201calive\u201d as constantly evolving into a more authentic and fully-formed version of yourself. She believes your emotions will provide all the instructions you need when learning how to express yourself better\u2014<\/strong>and the most challenging emotions are often the most instructive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Doyle\u2019s post-rehab growth is a common experience\u2014many people experience positive<\/em> psychological change, which experts call Post-Traumatic Growth<\/a>, after a hardship or trauma. This phenomenon occurs because enduring a life-altering event can suddenly force you to consider your relationships, who you are<\/a>, and your place in the world<\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expressing Yourself Better: Difficult Emotions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n