Oh the irony. I spend the last few weeks writing about happiness and publicly sharing my discovering of what it means to me. Yet any ‘understanding’ I seemed to have gained about it, hasn’t stopped me being in a wretchedly foul mood these past few days, feeling anything but. I won’t go into details, only because the reasons seem so petty now, making it all the more frustrating and embarrassing. Like a petulant toddler, I have been feeling sorry for myself, put upon and dejected. And it’s hard to be happy, mid-tantrum.

Is happiness so tenuous? So easily thrown off-course? This week hasn’t been pretty, but once again, life throws a learning in my direction just when I need it most. The last part of Dr Holden’s ‘Happiness Interview’ gets us to look at why we are not happier, and how we can address that.

See what light his questions shed for you on your happiness:

What is the main block to happiness in your life right now? And what do you think is the solution?

For me it boils down to fear. When fear creeps into my thinking, in the guises of scarcity, loneliness, worry about the future or mulling the past, getting stuck comparing myself with others, feeling desperate, lacking, and not good enough … these thoughts and their resulting feelings block my happiness like a lockdown. Through their distorted lens, nothing else feels good enough either.

The solution? One immediate response is that I need to step off the treadmill, to slow things right down. I have identified ways of being that bring me happiness, but I’m not doing them. They disappear from mind altogether when obstacles arise or things don’t go to plan. It’s like I need a constant reminder, a crib sheet of my ways to happiness: setting myself up to win, making more authentic choices, avoiding distractions, making time for things that matter to me most. (Get them tattooed on my eyelids?)

It’s about being more conscious of the thoughts I’m thinking, choosing them deliberately rather than in hasty reaction. It’s also about creating positive habits that support my happiness:

I have a list of things I love to do and that I care about (spending focused, uninterrupted time with my son, journaling, exercise, mindfulness, play, etc) but too often they get forgotten or shunted to the end of the priority pile, usurped by daily firefighting or perceived ‘urgencies’ like keeping up with the Jones’ or trying to make other people happy. Practising the positives builds emotional fitness and stability, making me better equipped to cope with any setbacks.

How are you currently limiting your own happiness? What beliefs, ideas, habits, defenses, old wounds or fears are holding you back?

I’ve discovered a plethora, again, all spinning out from fear. It amazes me the elaborate lengths that we go to ‘protect’ ourselves and how misguided our defenses can be:

I distract myself: with worries about relationships/work/parenting, gossip, television … And I keep myself in a constant state of chaos and turmoil: taking on major projects that consume time and energy and keep me from doing those things that are the most important to me. But why?

Partly because I’m stuck in some limiting belief that doing good things for myself will be ‘hard work’, boring or lonely, so I fill my time to avoid them. What’s frustrating is that I know that doing these ‘good’ things in the past (things from my list) wasn’t difficult and didn’t take much time when I got down to it, and the result was, I was happy. The fears are illogical, but they’ve worked their way into my head and confuse themselves as fact.

There could be the underlying fear that even if I do all these things, I still might not be happy.

Perhaps holding my happiness at arms length, soothing myself that I’d be happy if only I did them, is better than doing them and discovering I don’t know how to be happy at all.

There’s a good chance I harbour some deep feeling that I don’t deserve to be happy. Happiness isn’t exactly role-modeled for us by society. Instead it’s a dangling carrot, the thing you get if you ‘work hard’ (that American dream), or your reward when you die, or what you can purchase, as advertised on every billboard and magazine, if you buy this product or that.

Self-expression, authenticity, self-care, loving mindfulness and presence are what I’ve identified with my happiness. These are not the most valued or supported of endeavours in these fast-paced, money-driven times. They’re considered a luxury, a time-suck, an indulgence. The lingering puritanical view would say it’s hardly ‘proper’ to indulge. Can one really afford to? And all these things come with a huge possibility and threat of rejection by others … I can understand why my protective brain might declare: ‘happiness — best to avoid really’.

What are your fears of happiness? For instance, what are you afraid might happen if you were too happy?

I’m afraid I might not be able to maintain it. And I worry that if I’m too happy, I might just stop, dissolve away into a blissful cloud, perhaps disappear off into an ashram and not ‘do’ anything with this one shot I’ve got at life.

In short: what I want most in my life is to be happy, but I can never actually allow myself to be happy because then I’d be wasting it…??

Oh, the convolutions of my inner mind – it’s almost laughable. I clearly have some work to do. The inquiry cannot stop here.

What would you say is the real secret to happiness?

Allowing ourselves to be it.

If you were to follow your joy more than ever before, what would you do differently?

My list. Following my joy is actively participating in life, not hiding behind excuses and holding back (justifying my fears). Joy is bold and brave and doing what I love. I know what these things are. What are yours? I believe there’s also a joyful way of being: open, calm, present, unhurried, certain of my truth, curious, fiercely loving... It’s spending my time, money and attention on things aligned with my most authentic self, that bring genuine pleasure and that honour all that I’m grateful for.

These things make me happy just thinking about them. A world away from this past week of fretting and consternation. Following my joy is making positive choices for how I want to look at things, react, who and how I want to be in the world. It might be my life’s very quest… and I feel the urge to get to it.

The interview is now over, but it feels like the conversation is just beginning.

If you are interested in following your joy and continuing this exploration into your happiness, join well-being practitioner, Hayley Bennet (trained with Robert Holden) and myself, in our upcoming Happiness Workshop - starting this fall.

Julia Pitt is a trained Success Coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on (441)705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.