Why Are Close Friendships Important?

According to a 2021 American Perspectives Survey, Americans tend to have fewer close friends in recent years than they did in years past (see my article: Overcoming Loneliness and Social Isolation).

The survey also found that Americans talk to friends less often and rely on friends less for emotional support than they did in the past (see my article: Emotional Support From Your Family of Choice).

Close Friends Are Important For Your Overall Well-Being

According to the survey, there are reasons for this, including:

• Americans are more mobile than they were before so this makes it difficult to maintain friendships with the consistency that these relationships need.

• Americans are working and traveling more for work which doesn't leave time to develop and foster friendships.

• American parents are spending more time with their children than previous generations so this doesn't allow much time for friendships.

Why Are Close Friendships Important to Your Mental Health?

Close friendships can improve mental health because friendships:

• Reduce Loneliness and Social Isolation: Spending time with friends can help prevent loneliness and social isolation which can have mental health benefits.

• Provide Emotional Support: Friends can help with getting through difficult times and to cope with anxiety, depression, stress and major changes.

Close Friends Are Important For Your Overall Well-Being

• Improve Self Esteem: Positive interactions with friends can improve self esteem.

• Foster a Sense of Belonging: Close friends can increase feelings of belonging and community which can help with feeling connected and supported (see my article: The Need For Emotional Connection and a Sense of Belonging).

• Increase Happiness and Satisfaction with Life: Close friends can contribute to overall happiness and satisfaction with life.

• Help With Personal Growth: Friendships can challenge you to learn, grow and become a better version of yourself.

• Provide a Sense of Purpose: Close friendship can contribute to a sense of meaning and purpose in life (see my articles: A Search For a Meaningful Life and Living a Meaningful Life).

Why Are Close Friendship Important for Your Physical Health?

Close friendships can improve your physical health benefits because friendships can:

• Improve Cardiovascular Health: Having supportive friends can contribute to having healthier blood pressure and reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems.

Close Friendships Are Important to Your Overall Well-Being

• Enhance Immune Functions: Social support from friends can potentially enhance immune functions which reduce the risk of illness.

• Help Increase Life Expectancy: Studies have indicated that people with strong social connections tend to live longer.

Future Articles:

I'll continue to explore the importance of friendships in future articles.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

I'm discussing  triggers from a different perspective than how I usually discuss them as a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

What Are Triggers?

Therapists, especially trauma therapists, tend to focus on trauma triggers because it's helpful for traumatized clients to know how to recognize and cope with triggers. But it's also important to recognize happiness triggers to add to the quality of your life.

Although the word "trigger" tends to have a negative connotation, psychologically speaking, triggers are neither negative or positive. Triggers are experiences that evoke memories. 

What Are Happiness Triggers?

Happiness triggers refers to rituals and routines we engage in to tap into positive memories and cultivate positive experiences.

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

The term "happiness triggers" is usually associated with Valorie Burton, life coach, author and motivational speaker.

What Are the Benefits of Discovering Your Happiness Triggers?

Discovering your happiness triggers can be a way of starting new positive habits because these triggers are associated with positive experiences and they can motivate you to develop positive habits.

Happiness triggers can also serve as an anchor in your life.

When happiness triggers evoke positive experiences, they access positive memories that are neurochemically wired in your brain.  

Happiness triggers can also help to pull you out of a funk when you're feeling low.

How to Develop Happiness Triggers

Happiness triggers are based on individual experiences, memories, needs, interests and values so they will be unique for each person.

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

To discover your own unique happiness triggers, start by thinking about the small things in your life in the present or in the past that lift your mood and energy. It can be as simple as the ritual of having your morning coffee or tea, listening to your favorite podcast, taking a walk in the park and so on.

If you're still unsure, practice being present in the moment to experiences that bring you joy. Pay attention to your bodily experiences when you experience memories that were joyful or  evoke a sense of well-being.

Happiness Triggers Require Practice

Once you have discovered your unique happiness triggers, you need to practice them over and over again in order to develop them into positive habits.

These new habits can include behavioral, cognitive (thinking) or emotional triggers.

Behavioral Happiness Triggers

Behavioral happiness might include:

• Exercising

• Yoga
  

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

• Going for a walk in nature

• Dancing

• Listening to music

• Performing an act of kindness for someone

• Reading a favorite book

• Engaging in a favorite hobby

Cognitive (Thinking) Happiness Triggers

Cognitive happiness triggers might include:

• Reframing negative thoughts with positive self talk or affirmations

• Making friends with your inner critic

• Recalling and re-experiencing positive memories and experiences

• Practicing mindfulness meditation
  

Emotional Happiness Triggers

• Practicing gratitude by keeping a gratitude journal

• Practicing acceptance and self compassion

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

• Engaging your five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell and touch)

• Getting a massage

• Getting a manicure

• Playing a sport

• Connecting or reconnecting with a friend or loved one

Conclusion

Developing and practicing happiness triggers can increase your sense of joy and well-being.

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

You can also discover happiness triggers by connecting to your inner world and connecting to a loved one to discover what is most meaningful and fulfilling to you.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

What is a Flow State?

The Flow State has also been described as being "in the zone" or "in the groove."  

When  people are in a Flow State, they are so immersed and focused on whatever enjoyable task they're doing that they don't notice time is passing. 

A Flow State

This article will focus on:

• Defining the Flow State
• Positive Psychology and the Flow State
• The Benefits of the Flow State
• How to Enter into the Flow State

What is the Flow State?

The psychological Flow State is a state of being completely absorbed, focused and involved in an enjoyable task for its own sake.

A Flow State

The Flow State is similar to mindfulness in that a person who is in that state is in the present moment.

Tasks that allow for a Flow State include (but are not limited to): 

• Sports 
• Yoga
• Dancing 
• Reading
• Gardening
• Crafts
• Painting
• Drawing
• Video games
• Listening to music
• Playing an instrument
• Sex 

These tasks can be anything that is enjoyable, rewarding and at just the right level of challenge for a person's particular skill set.  

A Flow State

The tasks aren't so tough that they're overwhelming and they're not so easy that they're boring.

What is the Connection Between Positive Psychology and the Flow State?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian-American psychologist who was a leader in the Positive Psychology movement, popularized the concept of the Flow State.

The Positive Psychology movement was developed in the late 20th Century as an alternative to the psychological perspective at the time that focused on psychopathology.

In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Csikszentmihalyi indicated that people are happiest when they are in the Flow State.

He characterized nine components of the Flow State:

• Challenge-skill balance
• Merging of action and awareness
• Clarity
• Immediate and clear feedback
• Concentration on the task
• Paradox of control (the more you try to control something the more. you lose control)
• Transformation of time
• Loss of self consciousness
• Autotelic experience (performing tasks that are intrinsically rewarding)

What Are the Benefits of the Flow State?

• Better performance
• Fewer distractions
• Less self judgment
• Increased motivation to complete a task
• Great ability to spend a longer time on a task
• Increased skill and sense of self competence

How Can You Enter into the Flow State?

People often get into the Flow State without realizing it, but you can also try to induce a Flow State.

If you want to induce the Flow State, you can:

• Think about the times you were able to get into the Flow State in the past

A Flow State

• Engage in enjoyable activities where you can get immersed

• Eliminate distractions, interruptions and multitasking so you can focus on one activity

• Allow enough time to enter into a Flow State (a longer time is more conductive to Flow)

• Practice mindfulness

Conclusion

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work emphasized that the Flow State can induce a feeling of happiness and a sense of meaningfulness.  

He also stressed the importance of the balance between the challenge of the task and the skill involved to be able to enter into a Flow State.

You can explore different tasks to find the ones that enable you to enter into a Flow State and derive the benefits of Flow.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I am a sex-positive therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How to Maintain a Happy Relationship

Developing and maintaining a happy relationship is more challenging these days than ever.  Whereas in former times people had the emotional support of an extended family, people in relationships now tend to rely much more on each other, which often places a strain on the relationship (see my articles: Nurturing Your Relationship and Creating a Safe Haven For Each Other.

Developing and Maintaining a Happy Relationship

While no relationship is without occasional problems, more relationships these days are failing because of the greater emotional burden placed on the relationship.  Also, people often enter into a relationship with unrealistic expectations of their partners and unaware of the work it takes to develop and maintain a happy relationship.

How to Develop and Maintain a Happy Relationship

• Make Your Relationship a Priority:  This might sound obvious and yet, without even realizing it, so many people in relationships allow distractions to get in the way of making the relationship a priority (see my articles: Relationships: The Importance of Unplugging From Your Phone and Computer to Spend Quality Time Together.

Developing a Happy Relationship: Spend Quality Time Together Without Distractions

• Be Loving and Kind to Each Other:  Many couples are loving and kind to each other at the beginning of the relationship but, as time goes on, they forget to do the things that endeared them to each other (see my articles:  Practicing Tolerance and Compassion in Your Relationship).

• Talk About What You Need Emotionally From Your Romantic Partner:  Talking about emotional needs is often difficult for people who are afraid to make themselves emotionally vulnerable, especially if one or both partners grew up in a family where people didn't talk about their feelings. Many couples don't know how to communicate their needs and come across as blaming or complaining, which makes the other partner shut down.  Other people seem to feel that their partner "should know" what they want without their communicating their needs (see my article:  Relationships: Are You Too Afraid to Talk to Your Spouse About What's Bothering and Are You Feeling Lonely in Your Relationship?).

• Respect One Another:  Respecting one another is often related to being able to talk about emotional needs.  For example, if, instead of focusing on what she needs emotionally from her husband, a woman blames her husband for not being more attentive, her husband might shut down and not hear her underlying message, which is: "I need you to show that you care about me."  That message gets lost because it's not getting communicated directly.  The husband will feel criticized and might stonewall.  This often leads to the wife becoming more strident, which leads to even further withdrawal by the husband.  Aside from the obvious forms of disrespect, like name calling, other less obvious forms of disrespect, like eye rolling, show contempt for the other partner and often lead to the demise of the relationship (see my articles:  Emotional Intimacy: The One Who Loves You the Most is Often the One Who Hurts You the Most, and Relationships: When Expressing Your Feelings Turns Into Verbal Abuse).

• Develop Realistic Expectations of Your Relationship:  You're partner can't be everything to you.  You need to have friends and other forms of emotional support in order not to put too heavy a burden on the relationship (see my article: Relationships: Your Spouse Can't Meet All Your Expectations).

• Let Go of the Small Stuff:  When you're in a relationship, you need to know what's most important to you.  Do you really want to argue about the socks that never made it from the floor to the hamper?  If you do, you'll be arguing a lot and this can erode a relationship quickly (see my article: Are You Overreacting to Small Disappointments? and Letting Go of Resentment).

• Find Ways to Grow Together:  Finding ways to grow together is important, especially in a long term relationship.  People change over time, and if one person is developing and growing and the other person isn't, the couple could grow apart.  When you share new interests, you're developing as individuals and as a couple (see my articles: Relationships: Are You in a Relationship Rut? and How to Integrate Change Into Your Relationship).

Developing and Maintaining a Happy Relationship:  Be Playful With One Another

• Be Playful With One Another:  Couples, who are playful and fun with each other at the beginning of the relationship, often forget to do the things that brought them together in the first place.  Having a sense of humor and finding other ways to be playful keeps the relationship fresh and alive (see my articles: Do You Remember What It's Like to Have Fun in Your Relationship? Try a Little Playfulness and Improving Sexual Intimacy in a Long Term Relationship).

Getting Help For Your Relationship in Couples Counseling
There are many couples who have lost their way in their relationship and they're unable to find their way back to the loving relationship that they once had.

A skilled psychotherapist, who works with couples, can help a couple to understand what went wrong and provide them with tools to get back on track (see my article: What is Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy?).

If you've tried on your own to work out your relationship, but you keep coming up short, you could benefit from seeing a couples therapist who can help you to have the loving relationship that you once had.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist 

I am a sex positive therapist who works with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Overcoming Your Discomfort With Asking For Emotional Support

There is a Swedish proverb that says, "Shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow."  This proverb reminds us that we're hardwired for attachment with others, including sharing our joy and sorrow with people who are close to us, and that joy and sorrow are affected in a positive way by the emotional support that we receive (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Asking For Help).

Overcoming Your Discomfort With Asking For Emotional Support

Sharing joy is usually easier for most people than sharing sorrow.  Many people think that if they share their sadness, they will be judged critically by others.

Often, this is because they were judged harshly in their family of origin, and they received the message from an early age that no one wants to hear about their sadness.

As a result, they learn to pretend to be happy when they're not, they keep their sadness to themselves and don't receive the emotional support that they need (see my article: How to Stop Pretending to Be Happy When You're Not).

Clinical Vignette: Feeling Uncomfortable Sharing Sadness With Loved Ones
The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information omitted, illustrates how difficult it can be to share sadness as an adult when, as a child, someone is told that he isn't entitled to feel sad:

Tom
After going through a series of significant losses, including the breakup of a relationship and the loss of a close friend who moved away, Tom decided to start therapy because he felt overwhelmed by sadness, which he didn't understand.

After his psychotherapist heard from Tom about his losses and normalized his sadness, Tom told her that he still couldn't understand why he felt so sad.  He told her that he knew several other people who were going through more difficult problems than he was, and he felt it was "selfish" to feel sad, "Why should I feel sad when so many other people have it much worse than I do?"

Since she had a lot of experience working with clients who didn't think they were entitled to feel sadness, his psychotherapist asked Tom to tell her how his parents handled his sadness when he was a child.

Tom responded, "I stopped trying to get comfort from my parents when I was sad after my father told me when I was five that he would give me something to really feel sad about if I didn't stop saying that I was feeling sad" (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

Tom explained to his therapist that both of his parents had been through many serious hardships when they were children and they grew up to be "stoic" people ("They didn't believe in feeling sad.  They just believed that, rather than dwelling on your sadness, you needed to do whatever you could to resolve your problems, and that was the end of it").

When his therapist asked Tom if he sought emotional support from his close friends when he was feeling down, he said that it would never occur to him to talk about his sadness--except in therapy--and even then, he usually looked for "a solution" rather than dwelling on his sadness in therapy.

As he thought about it, Tom said that his girlfriend ended their relationship because she didn't like that he couldn't express his sadness to her.  He said that she told him that it bothered her that, after three years, he still wasn't comfortable confiding in her when he was sad.  She also said that it made her feel uncomfortable to share her own sadness, so she ended the relationship.

Before coming to therapy, Tom told his therapist, he tried to "find solutions" to overcome his sadness, but nothing worked, and this confused him.

In response, his therapist provided Tom with psychoeducation about why it's important to share emotions, including sadness, with people who are part of his emotional support system (see my article: Emotional Support From Your Family of Choice).

Over time, Tom was able to see that he held himself to a much harsher standard than he did for his close friends.  He had no problems listening to his friends when they were sad, but he didn't feel entitled going to them with his sadness.

He began to understand in therapy that his experiences with his parents affected how he related to friends and romantic partners.  He also began to see that he felt much more emotionally vulnerable sharing his sadness with loved ones.

Gradually, Tom learned to allow himself to be more emotionally vulnerable with his close friends. Several months later, when he entered into a new relationship, he began to open up more to express his sadness so that he would be more emotionally authentic with his girlfriend.

As he received positive feedback and emotional support from his friends and girlfriend, Tom felt more comfortable opening up more to express the sadness that he never felt entitled to before.

He also realized that when he shared his sorrow with people close to him, he had such a sense of relief because his sadness diminished as he shared it.

Conclusion
Early childhood emotional experiences often affect adult relationships.

If a child receives a message from his parents over and over again that expressing sadness isn't acceptable, this child will grow up to be an adult that has problems expressing sadness.

Since emotional support is important for our overall well-being, when someone has problems expressing sadness, he doesn't experience the emotional relief that comes with getting emotional support.

Getting Help in Therapy
Being unable to express certain emotions, like sadness, is more common than most people think.

Well meaning parents, who have problems feeling their own sadness, can unwittingly create emotional problems for their children by not allowing them to express their full range of emotions.

Most experienced psychotherapists, especially trauma therapists, have experience helping clients to overcome feelings that they're not entitled to express certain emotions.

Working through this problem is usually a big relief for most clients because it allows them to ask for and receive emotional support from loved ones when they need it.

If you're having problems asking for emotional support, you could benefit from working with an experienced psychotherapist, who can help you to overcome this problem.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

One of my specialties is helping clients to overcome trauma so they can feel and express their full range of emotions.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

When You Shut Down Emotional Pain, You Also Shut Down Potential Pleasure

There are many people, who have a history of traumatic experiences and who could benefit from psychotherapy, but they never come to therapy.  Instead, they do whatever they can to try to suppress and avoid feeling their feelings, but what they usually don't realize is that when they shut down their emotional pain, they're also shutting down the potential for feeling pleasure (see my article: What Happens When You Numb Yourself Emotionally).

When You Shut Down Emotional Pain, You Also Shutdown Potential Pleasure

In addition, what many of people don't know is that a skilled trauma-informed psychotherapist knows how to help clients to develop the ability to expand their "window of tolerance" so they can work through their traumatic experiences in an emotionally-safe therapeutic environment (see my article: Expanding Your Window of Tolerance in Psychotherapy).

What is the Window of Tolerance?
In my prior article, I explained that, according to Dr. Dan Siegel, the window of tolerance is a term that refers to the optimal level of arousal or the optimal zone.

When clients are in their optimal level of tolerance, they are neither hyper-aroused nor hypo-aroused.  They are able to deal with problems as they come up because they're at their optimal level of arousal.

During times of extreme stress, if clients are experiencing hyperarousal, they're in the flight/flight mode, which includes hypervigilance, anxiety, racing thoughts and possibly panic. If they're experiencing hypoarousal, they're in the freeze mode, which includes emotional numbness, feelings of emptiness or emotional paralysis.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: When You Shut Down Emotional Pain, You Also Shut Down Potential Pleasure
The following fictional vignette illustrates how suppressing emotional pain also suppresses pleasure:

Rena
After Rena's mother died in a car accident, Rena would wake up each morning feeling that she had nothing to look forward to and she lacked purpose and meaning in her life.

She told her new psychotherapist that everything felt "blah" and no sooner did she wake up in the morning than she felt like hiding under the covers (see my article: Coping With the Loss of a Loved One: Complicated Grief).

When You Shut Down Emotional Pain, You Also Shut Down Potential Pleasure

She explained to her therapist that she didn't always feel this way.  For most of her life, she looked forward to the joy that each day would bring and she was able to take emotional challenges in stride.  But she was very close to her mother and after her mother died in a car accident, her grief was unbearable.

Rena realized that she had never experienced such raw sadness and anger before.  Her new psychotherapist explained to Rena how emotional numbing numbed joy as well as pain.  She recommended that they use EMDR therapy to help Rena overcome her trauma (see my article: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain).

Over the next several months, as Rena worked with her therapist on the unresolved grief, her therapist titrated the work so that it was manageable for Rena.

Rena's psychotherapist worked in a way that was within Rena's window of tolerance so that, although Rena still felt very sad when she processed her grief, she didn't feel overwhelmed.

Gradually, Rena was able to expand her window of tolerance so that she could tolerate dealing with deeper levels of emotion without feeling overwhelmed.

Psychotherapy Can Help You to Overcome Traumatic Experiences 

Over time, Rena felt as if she was coming back to life again.  Although she continued to feel sad, she also had moments of happiness.  She felt like she was coming out of a period of time when everything felt gray.  Now, she was beginning to notice colors, nature, music--all the things she enjoyed in her life before her mother died.

She memorialized her mother by writing short stories about her from the time her mother was a young girl up until the time she died so unexpectedly.  This felt healing to Rena (see my article: Writing About Your Mother After Her Death).

Conclusion
Shutting down often occurs when people feel overwhelmed by emotion.  It starts as a protective defense mechanism.  Over time, it can develop into an emotional and physical numbing that shuts out pleasure as well as pain.

When this occurs, some people feel their life has no meaning.  The more they try to avoid feeling, the more exhausting it becomes to try to suppress their feelings.

There is no quick fix for overcoming an overwhelming traumatic event, but trauma therapy can help.

Getting Help in Therapy
While it's understandable that people who have experienced trauma want to protect themselves from feeling the emotional pain, avoiding feeling emotions only makes it worse.

A skilled trauma therapist knows how to work with trauma in a relatively manageable way.

This doesn't mean that there is no emotional pain involved, but an experienced trauma therapist can work in a way to minimize a client getting overwhelmed by working within the client's window of tolerance and helping the client to expand that window of tolerance (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

If you're feeling stuck with unresolved trauma, you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in helping clients to overcome trauma.

Working through psychological trauma allows you to work through the emotional pain so that you can feel like yourself again and you can lead a more meaningful life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I am a trauma-informed psychotherapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

Looking Happy on the Outside, But Feeling Broken on the Inside

Looking happy on the outside, but feeling broken on the inside is a common experience for people who are depressed but who want to appear as if nothing is wrong (see my article: How to Stop Pretending to Feel Happy When You Don't).

Looking Happy on the Outside, But Feeling Broken on the Inside

In many cases, it's not just a matter of putting on a facade for other people--people who smile on the outside but actually feel depressed are also often attempting to convince themselves that there's nothing wrong.  They use the happy outer expression as a defense mechanism to hide their depression from themselves as well as from others.

In other cases, people, who might be out of touch with their feelings, are unaware that they feel depressed.  But, at times, they might notice that there's a disconnect between how they appear to others and what they feel inside.

When they do sense their depression, they often brush it off, so the disconnect between how they appear and how they feel deep down is maintained.

The old saying, "You can't judge a book by it's cover" applies to this problem.  The person who gives the impression of being the happiest might be the person who is really dying inside.

Let's take a look at a fictional clinical vignette that illustrates these issues:

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Looking Happy on the Outside, But Feeling Broken on the Inside:

Toni
Toni was considered a "dynamo" by her friends and colleagues.  She had a dynamic presence among colleagues and friends.  She headed up new projects at work with gusto, mentored new colleagues with enthusiasm, and she often entertained friends at home.

She was always smiling, laughing and cheerful, offering valuable advice and encouragement.  No one would ever know that she felt broken inside.

When she was alone, Toni felt restless and irritable.  She didn't like to have free time because the sadness that was welling up inside her threatened to overtake her emotionally, so she always found things to do to keep herself busy and distracted (see my article: Are You "Keeping Busy" to Avoid Painful Emotions?)

At 32, she was on track to get a promotion to a senior position at work, and she was taking on more and more responsibilities from her director.  As the work piled on and her personal schedule got busier, she was beginning to feel exhausted.

There were times at the end of the day that she just went home and collapsed in bed.  She felt physically and emotionally depleted, but she told no one, not even her close friends, that she felt burnt out (Managing Your Stress: What Are the Signs of Burnout?).

After several months at this pace, Toni found it harder and harder to keep up her facade of being happy all the time.

There were times when she couldn't contain her tears and she closed the door to her office to cry.  Then, she would wipe her eyes, open her door, and go back out trying to appear cheerful.

Looking Happy on the Outside, But Feeling Broken on the Inside

But the exhaustion soon took it's toll, and Toni began getting headaches.

When she saw her doctor and he ruled out any serious medical problems, he told her that he suspected that she was under too much stress and she would soon burn out if she didn't make changes to her lifestyle.

Her doctor recommended that Toni use stress management techniques, like meditation, to reduce her stress.

Toni tried to follow her doctor's recommendations.  She got meditation recordings, including mindfulness meditation, and tried to listen to these recordings at least once a day, as her doctor recommended.  He also told her to come back to see him in a month.

But whenever she listened to the meditation recordings, she would break down crying, and she didn't know why.  So, she stopped listening to the meditation recordings, and when she went back to her doctor and told him about her reaction, he recommended that she see a psychotherapist.

Toni had never been in therapy before, and she told her doctor, "I'm not a weak person.  Why should I go to therapy?"

So, her doctor, who was informed about psychotherapy, told her that it was a myth that going to therapy meant that you're a "weak person" and he also went over the other common myths about psychotherapy (see my articles:  Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Going to Therapy Means You're "Weak", Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Therapy Takes a Long Time, and Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Therapy is "All Talk and No Action").

Toni thought about her doctor's advice.  She had friends who were in therapy and who told her that they were helped by therapy, so she decided to give it a try.

During her initial consultation with her psychotherapist, Toni told her about how she was crying and she didn't know why.  She told her therapist that everyone considered her to be a happy, cheerful, successful person, but sometimes she felt like a "phony" because when she was alone, if she wasn't keeping herself busy and distracted, she felt sad.

As Toni and her therapist talked about her childhood background in subsequent sessions, Toni told her that her parents always discouraged Toni from complaining.  Her mother would encourage her to smile, and her father would tell her, "Nobody likes a sad sack."

So, whenever anything bothered Toni, she would ignore it and try to overcome the problem as best as she could.  She never talked to her parents about her problems because she knew that they would lecture her about complaining (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?).

She also described how, over time, she became a perfectionist.  She tried to do everything "perfectly" and "perfect" became her only option.  Her perfectionism was rewarded at school, in college and in her career (see my article: Perfect vs. "Good Enough").

As she continued to talk about her underlying sadness and her need to be "perfect," Toni became more attuned to her underlying feelings.  She realized that she really wasn't happy--she was depressed and she was trying to hide it from herself and others because she felt guilty about feeling depressed, "I have no reason to be depressed" (see my article: Overcoming Guilt and Shame About Feeling Depressed).

Her therapist spoke to Toni about how shame is often the underlying issue underneath perfectionism, and Toni was able to identify with her feelings of shame that she was really less than "perfect" (see my article: Overcoming Perfectionism and The Connection Between Perfectionism and Core Shame).

Her therapist also spoke to Toni about the "false self" vs the "true self" and how at an early age children can learn to put on a facade to appear to be happy when they're not (see my articles:  Understanding the False Self - Part 1, Understanding the False Self - Part 2, and Becoming Your True Self).

In addition, her therapist spoke to Toni about depression and helped Toni to differentiate between feeling sad and feeling depressed (see my article: What is the Difference Between Sadness and Depression?).

Toni began to realize that, once she started pretending to be happy as a child, she became disconnected from her real feelings, and this continued into adulthood.

It was only after she felt the emotional and physical strain of taking on too much and trying to appear happy when she wasn't feeling happy that she started to break down crying.  She realized now that the cumulative effect was too much for her.

Toni felt relieved to have a time and place in therapy to be able to discover how she really felt.  She also appreciated that her therapist was objective and nonjudgmental.

As she continued to work through the childhood emotional neglect and the pressure to appear happy, she began to feel more genuinely herself (see my article: Living Authentically - Aligned With Your Values).

Rather than trying to be cheerful all the time with her friends, when her depressive symptoms were most acute, she spoke to her close friends about it, which was a relief.

The authenticity that Toni felt helped her to deal with the underlying issues that she had been avoiding all along.

Feeling authentic, rather than pretending to be happy, gave Toni an overall sense of well-being as she worked through her depression in therapy.

Conclusion
It's physically and emotionally exhausting to pretend to feel happy when you don't.

The strain of trying to appear happy on the outside when you feel broken on the inside usually catches up with you at some point.  The stress involved can cause medical problems.  And if you're already depressed, it can exacerbate your depression.

Getting Help in Therapy
Being able to let go of the need to appear happy all the time is letting go of a huge burden (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and The Courage to Change).

Not only does letting go of this burden help you to reduce your stress, you can also learn to feel authentic without the disconnect between your outer appearance and your inner world.

If the issues in this article resonate with you, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients get to the root of their need to appear happy when they were feeling deeply unhappy inside.  Free of this need to appear happy, they could go on to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

A Happy Life vs. a Meaningful Life

In my prior article, Are You Waiting For Happiness?, I focused on the issue of people waiting for a person, event or something else that is external for them to be happy.  

In this article, I'm discussing the issue I began to address in my prior article, happy life vs. a meaningful life (see my article: Living Authentically, Aligned With Your Values).

A Happy Life vs. a Meaningful Life

The Difference Happiness and Meaning in Your Life
Although many people have similar values, what's meaningful to one person can be very different from what is meaningful to another person with the same values.

What Research Says
A Stanford research study explored the differences between happiness and meaningfulness and discovered the following differences:

• Satisfying your desires can provide happiness, but it had nothing to do with a sense of meaningfulness.  The example that they gave was that a healthy person are usually happier than sick  people, but sick people's lives don't lack meaning.

• While happiness is about the present, meaningfulness links the past, present and the future.

• Interpersonal connections are important to both happiness and meaningfulness.  And, while spending time with casual friends might add to happiness, deep relationships, which require working on challenges, like family relationships, are more meaningful.

• People who have a high degree of meaningfulness in their lives often encounter negative issues, which can result in unhappiness.  One example given in the study is that raising children can give a sense of joy, but it's also connected to high stress, which can be meaningful but can also lead to unhappiness.  Another example is that while retirement can lead to happiness because people no longer have the pressure of their jobs, a sense of meaningfulness can drop.

• Meaningfulness is about expressing and defining yourself and your personal identity, whereas happiness is getting what you want.  A meaningful life is connected to a valued sense of self and your purpose your life and community.

• You can find meaning in life and still be unhappy.

• You can be happy and yet lack meaning in your life.

• Happiness without meaning often leads to a shallow and self-centered life.

• A meaningful life gives you a sense of purpose and direction where you are aligned with your values.

Getting Help in Therapy
Understanding what is meaningful to you is a process--it's not a one-time event that you settle once and for all.

In addition, what is meaningful to you at one stage in your life could be different from what it would be at a different stage as life changes and you continue to grow as a person.

Discovering what is meaningful to you can be challenging at various points in your life and might conflict with what might make you happy at the moment but would provide meaning in the long run.

Working with a skilled psychotherapist can help you to identify what is important to you, help you to develop insight into yourself and work through these issues.

These are issues that most people struggle with at some point in their lives.  Rather than struggling alone, you could get help in therapy so you can lead a more meaningful life.

About Me
I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist with over 20 years of experience working with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.