Happiness was never Schooled!

We need to stop saying that Happiness is a trendy topic. Because it is only a positive branding for the mental health battle. A much needed one.

Happiness was never schooled. Nor emotion management. Nor mindfulness. Nor empathy. Nor resilience. Nor positive psychology. Nor self love. Nor living in community. Nor the power of vulnerability. The list goes on. 

They teach us math, yet no one teaches how to count our blessings.
They teach us languages, yet no one teaches how to communicate positively.
They teach us geography yet no one teaches how to navigate our emotions.
They teach us PE, yet no one teaches the power of mindset.
They teach us history, yet no one teaches how to look within for a sustainable future.

We were taught to fit in, to correspond to expectations, not to be too outrageous, and to dream within the limits.
We weren't taught to live by meaning, purpose and to action accordingly to our values and beliefs system. To 'push civilization forward' or to change the world.

Life happened and we went on, living unauthentically.

This led to 21st century’s major diseases, symptoms and causes of death:
Anxiety, Comparison, Stress, Depression, Burnout, Suicide; translating in companies’ unhealthy status: high absenteeism, low engagement, high turnover, lack of creativity, innovation, productivity, loss of profits, and more.

It is time to reverse engineer all this. Gain back the sense of self worth, the sense of belonging, to heal purposefully, to respect ourselves and the ones around us. To honour the power of the smallest moments and one by one, design the life we truly want to live. To get back to the feeling of thriving, not merely surviving.

But doing it mindfully.
When we started letting go of self imposed and cultural ways of living, it seems we became obsessed with the pursuit of happiness. That only originated more stress as we noticed we can't feel positive emotions all the time.

We cannot. We won't. And that is OK. The human being is not hardwired to be happy, but to survive upon threats.

Real happiness comes from an understanding that we will feel all types of emotions throughout life and each of them has a role to play. It is what we do with them that counts. Understanding how chemically gifted our brain is and either take advantage of it or work around it. It is by practicing the habits that makes us release the ‘feel good’ hormones. It is living a life of meaning and be at peace within ourselves.

One can be experiencing emotional pain and still be a happy person to the power of its extent.

Happiness was never schooled, and that is why we exist today.

Madalena Carey,
Founder & Director Happiness Business School