Episode 104 – Signs you’re pretending to be happy

Hello loves

Welcome to season 2 of the Life in Align podcast.  

I wasn’t expecting to take a break.  I thought I’d have a few days off over summer.  My grief counsellor was going away for a month, and it seemed ideal time to take a step back from all the things, and just take the time to be out in the sun, reduce screen and social media time, and just be with my friends out in nature.  And before I knew it, two months had passed and the Autumn Equinox was upon us, and I was setting my next set of goals for the year.  I often reset goals in September as winter approaches and it’s my favourite time of year. 

Goal setting requires a period of reflection.  Counselling requires honesty and self-accountability for it to work.  Combining the two, away from the counselling setting for a while, allowed me to have the space needed to truly get to know myself. 

So, on today’s episode I want to ponder on some warning signs that you’re pretending to be happy, and what you can do about it.  From someone who knows.

We all have those moments when something doesn’t feel right.  We can get sick and/or we go through a period of grieving, and everyone understands it. For a while.  But there’s something you can’t shake, and as everyone around you expects you to be moving on by now, you instead start to put on a happy face.  It’s normal in a setting of strangers, you don’t always want to tell complete strangers what you’re going through so you pretend that you’re fine.  However when it comes to friends and family, feeling like you can’t truly express your emotions leads to resentment and anger.  My little, teenage, and adult selves have been smashing through resentments these last through months.  As some go, new ones appear.  They are a work in progress. 

What are some of these signs?

You’re on autopilot with fake smiles.

Remember as a kid you’d often get asked “what did you do at school today” and you’d reply “dunno”.  Now as an adult you’re having the exact same problem.  You have absolutely no idea what you did today.  I’d get up, go to work, come home, go to bed.  I’d know somewhere in there that I’d eaten.  Fed animals.  Completely disconnected.  From the outside I looked completely fine.  I looked like I was functioning.  I was going to the gym or for a run.  I had convinced everyone around me that everything was ok.  I’d even convinced myself.  I wasn’t living.  I was existing.

You have intense mood swings.

Some of this can definitely be an illness thing.  Get to a certain age and it’s also a perimenopause thing.  But when you’re at a point that your mood can be blown up at the slightest thing, then you have a problem.  For me, it was not feeling safe in the world.  I only felt safe behind a door that I had control over.  As I have learned to feel safer within my own body, I have learned to feel safer out in the world, and I no longer default to anger and aggression to get people to go away and leave me alone.  Don’t get me wrong, I am still an introvert, I can now safely judge what space feels like for me, and that it’s safe.

You have sleep issues.

Again, this can be an illness and/or perimenopause thing.  Research has shown that a lack of sleep leaves you feeling unhappier, and when you’re unhappy you’re less likely to sleep well.  I slept badly for years.  Not surprising really, considering that I didn’t feel safe, so my brain and body were hyper-vigilant and a deep, restful, sleep is not coming when your brain and body is convinced you’re about to be attacked at any moment.

You procrastinate.

Having a lack of drive to do something can mean that you are feeling down about life.  When I was first back to ”normal” life after my diagnosis I had no trouble getting out the door for a run, even after a day at work in London.  The house was clean and tidy.  I loved cooking and baking.  I disappeared off around the three counties for running trails and hopped on planes to be a day tourist.  Then another flare coincided with finding out I’d likely never have kids and I popped both in a metaphorical box in my head and decided to avoid dealing with either.  But as time went on and that box got heavy, even simpler things seemed like too much.  It takes a lot of energy to keep from dealing with something. 

You overindulge.

It could be alcohol, food, shopping, tv, sport.  Anything that you do in excess as a form of avoidance.  Mine is shopping.  When I can’t balance myself on the inside, I shop.  Usually something for my home to make it look different.  Overindulging is numbing.  If you find that you can’t get through the evening without a couple of glasses of wine, you’re avoiding something.  If you sit in front of the tv when you know you told yourself a few things you wanted to do instead, you’re avoiding something.  Most of the time, it’s how you’re truly feeling. 

So what can you do? 

There’s only one way to combat a negative mindset, and that’s to create a more positive one. 

Your brain is a search engine, so give it positive things to look for.  Literally ask it questions.  My fave is what things will make me smile today.  It sends my brain off looking for the things I like.  Animals, bees, popping into Starbucks, hearing people laugh, having a quiet commute. 

Gratitude makes a huge difference. 

It feels weird at first, and like you’re paying it lip service, but after a while you do feel better.  It also prompts your brain to look for more things to be grateful for.  When it’s looking for good stuff, less likely to notice the negative stuff.

Mindfulness and being present. 

I am not a seeing kinda gal.  Visualisation doesn’t work for me. So many of the mindfulness, meditation techniques don’t tend to work.  Ironically, considering I disconnected from them for many years, I am actually a feeling gal.  Probably why I felt so unsafe for so long, I wasn’t allowing myself to tap into my superpower.  In sports psychology there’s a great trick we use that allows us to visualise ourselves crossing finish lines. Doesn’t work for me.  What does work, is feeling how I’ll feel when it happens.  Some people are aural, as in auditory, so they’d imagine how the crowd sounds. 

Coming back to the breath is the best method for being present and mindful. 

We have to breathe.  Very often we’re shallow breathing, so coming back to the breath encourages you to breathe properly.  I do this by feeling my breath move around my body.  I have a friend who listens to her breath move around her body.  Find out what works for you.

Lastly, talk to someone. 

It doesn’t have to be a counsellor, although there is something about telling a complete stranger how you feel in a safe container.  Knowing that you’ll not have to eat dinner with them later, or spend a day working with them.  But it does need to be someone you trust and feel safe with.  Someone who won’t use it against you, or tell others behind your back. You choose who that person is.  You may have someone in your life who expects it to be them, but that doesn’t mean it should be, and this is especially true of a family member.  Just because someone is family, it doesn’t give them an all access pass to what is going on for you.

Ultimately, the only way forward is to be honest with yourself. 

It’s easy to blame others.  To say you’re not happy because your partner is behaving a certain way.  But it’s not them.  It’s you.  If you have most evenings to yourself, and don’t do the things you said you’d do, or haven’t seen your friends in a while, yet you blame it on a partner you see a couple of times a week, be honest with yourself about who is really the one to be held accountable.  If your boss has been a pain and in a bad mood, is it really your boss’ fault that you are also now in a bad mood?  Or is it you who let them affect you?

It can be very scary to admit some of these things.  Scary to admit you’re not happy.  Especially when there are people looking from the outside in saying things like “what have you got to be unhappy about”.  Sometimes you don’t want to admit it because you’re not sure if you’ll survive the pain.  But, from someone coming out the other side of three major losses pretty much at the same time, somehow we make it through. 

Be honest, reconnect with yourself, address the root causes, and do what is best for you.

And remember, you are worth it, and you get to choose.

Have a lovely day.