Why do not I let myself be happy?
Sometimes good or even fantastic things happen to us. We get an increase, a new job or finally our company is doing well, we have a stable and healthy relationship or things in our life are finally "fitting in", and yet we feel that "something is not right" .
It is as if when everything seems to go in order, a vacuum, fear, anxiety grow inside us. Why is this happening? It's not crazy?!
Why are some people unable to feel happiness?
To understand this problem that affects so many people, let's see a concrete example.
Miguel, from success to failure in a short time
Miguel is a person who works in the sales area and is doing quite well . He has worked hard and has made an effort to sell more and take extraordinary care of his clients. One fine day, at the annual gala dinner his boss decides to name him the seller of the year, with a new position and an excellent bonus. He had never arrived so high in his career.
Miguel was totally happy and grateful for the recognition, however a short time later he reacted negatively. He started arriving late for work, he began to have headaches and back pain for no apparent reason. He decided to delegate the tasks he did best to his subordinates and to neglect his clients. His performance was falling and his evaluations were not as positive as before. His boss noticed the change and made him see it. Miguel felt that he had criticized him strongly and felt resentful. Soon he was led by a negative spiral of low performance, frustration and self-criticism. He began to doubt his abilities as a salesman and wondered if he deserved his position. After having achieved what he so wanted, it seemed that he was self sabotaging each step. Why could not he just accept the position and feel satisfied?
When the good news is not so good ...
In fact, this behavior has a psychological explanation . All of us form a concept of who we are, however for numerous reasons (experiences, upbringing, defenses) we have areas in which we evaluate ourselves negatively. Instead of changing this negative concept of ourselves, we unconsciously adapt to it and create a certain balance around it, like a thermostat that is always regulated at the same temperature. It is our personal ecosystem.
When we receive a lot of love, recognition and admiration that contradicts our psychological and emotional balance we feel anxious, since all this challenges the negative concept of ourselves. The anxiety or fear of "not measuring up" or feeling out of place becomes hostility to manipulate the circumstances or alienate others , distancing ourselves from that "rise in temperature", that is, love, admiration or recognition.
A defense mechanism that can sabotage our joy
This is called pseudo-aggression. Pseudo-aggression is a type of anger that is used to provoke rejection and create distance in others to restore psychological balance .
Unusually positive experiences sometimes trigger deep sadness and other painful emotions that in turn trigger anger and hostility. I suspect that the legend that states that the people who win the lottery is usually more unhappy than before has to do with this.
Returning to Miguel and his difficulties
A good friend of Miguel, very perceptively warned him that all this whirlwind of frustration, poor performance and resentment against his boss seemed to come from the promotion and the bonus won a few months before.
This reflection made sense to Miguel: since he had won the prize he felt that there was something in him that he did not deserve, he feared that all his boss's admiration would vanish if his performance dropped and he felt uncomfortable with the new source of attention and compliments. However, understanding the origin of his negative reaction gradually caused him to reverse the course towards labor failure. He began to realize that the boss was not against him, that the clients were the same and that he had inadvertently neglected his work. He began to grow and adapt to his new concept and "ecosystem" instead of shrinking to be sent to the world where he was conditioned .
Share with us: Has any good change in your life been a source of imbalance in your "ecosystem"? How have you felt and what have you done to adjust?
