Happiness
The Most Chased Value
The search for answers is a quest we all carry within us and our ways to get those answers can be one-off.
I am deeply interested in the way I behave and sometimes surprised as well as I see similar behaviour and responses around me. We all want to do certain things willingly; we feel excited to do them. And there are few things we earnestly want to do but maintain a façade of unwillingness. This is especially true when we take health in perspective. We want good health but we do not want to eat healthy, do exercise and make a long-term commitment. If we find people around us who are disciplined, we feel privileged to label them as obsessive and boring.
As human beings we attach value to everything. It can be money, emotions, time, ease, comfort. Any action brings with it possible and effective changes. I am a nutritionist so I will give you examples involving food. I want to feel happy and happiness is the value I attach to the foods I like and the comfort they bring. It can be a piece of chocolate or it can be a food my mother cooked which I loved as a child.
Happiness is the most chased value we attach to and search for and food is easiest and fastest source to get it.
If food can so easily make us happy, why and how it can have adverse effects on our body. After all happy and satisfied people tend to live longer. The challenge here is that emotions are not that easy to understand. I want to feel happy because I am unhappy or anxious or uncomfortable somewhere and I think food has the power to make me feel good. It might succeed for a short while before I start feeling unhappy again.
We all want to acquire knowledge. It best be free as it will not require our commitment. And It will also not threaten us to change personally. But it equips us to pass it on as free advice.
Am I being too harsh or maybe I am in a bad mood while writing this article? Maybe I feel threatened as nutritionist and I am trying to hold behaviours responsible. But reality is if the effort involved is making me uncomfortable, I would tend to put blame on people’s unwillingness, attitudes and behaviour. Discomfort is a sign or an opportunity to improve. It brings with itself the promise to make things better if we change. Sadly, we often do not find change easy as the value we attach to it is unhappiness and discomfort and it becomes an unworthy bargain.
The challenge we have as health professionals, is not only to find ways to promote health but also to present health as a package that despite the promise of change it has the most chased value: The Happiness.
I personally feel that the most valuable training which should be given to a nutritionist is to learn to handle resistance. In simple language learn to handle No, personally and professionally. If we have that capability we look beyond prejudices and come up with innovative and creative ideas to inspire people towards healthy behaviours. After taking training for 700+ hours in psychodrama, I feel I am more inclined to find creative and yet simple ways which involve both my left and right brain.
I will share a simple exercise I do when I get stuck or I have to work out complex situation. I take a paper, few colours and start drawing with me standing in the center in a stuck position. I ask myself a question and start drawing various paths moving out of me in all directions and at the end of each path there is a destination. I colour those paths using different colours and keep writing words in spontaneity in between. Once I finish my drawing, I write a short note about each path, destination and the journey. I feel very relaxed, happy and do the exercise without the stress of getting an answer. I mostly get the answer, if not immediately then over a period of one or two days.
There are many other creative techniques available for finding your path out of tricky situations while feeling relaxed and happy. Believe me being creative and imaginative always makes me look forward to finding solutions. Do try this exercise and share your experience with me and attach a value…