Raederle's Happiness Formula

 Like anyone who has struggled with feeling lonely, depressed, or lethargic, I’ve been keenly interested in anything that shifts me into feeling connected, content, or energetic.

Over the years I’ve collected clues and gathered them into an outline of what makes me feel like “the best version” of myself. This isn’t to say that I’m an inferior version of myself when I’m sad or lethargic . . . But I like myself and my life best when I’m inspired, creative, and trail-blazingly energetic.

What follows is a series of journal entries where I expounded on key ingredients to feeling fulfilled, inspired, and satisfied. After the journal entries I’ve included my Formula for Happiness, and my checklists for feeling Energized versus Sapped. However, please note that all of the information on this page is about reflecting on what makes me happy. I’m not promising that anything here will make you happy. However, it is my hope that these ideas help you reflect on your personal truths.

Happiness comes from Connection

December 15th 2017

Several years ago I came up with a rough sketch for “staying happy.” The magic formula I developed was an inclusion of all of the following things in my life on a consistent basis:

1. An exciting project I work on daily.

2. An enjoyable book I read daily.

3. Something I look forward to.

4. Someone to talk to right before going to sleep who listens with presence.

This formula still proves to be true in my current life, but today I have realized why it works. It is about connection. These are all different strategies to avoid an aching pit of loneliness – but these strategies have a synergistic magic which, all together, make me feel like I have connection with myself, my culture, my timeline, and a special ally.

A project is about connecting with myself. By taking aspects of myself and using self-expression to support my values through a project, I feel seen and understood by myself. This “feeling seen” is the sensation of connection. It is rapport, reflection, and recognition.

A book that I enjoy is enjoyable because I feel connected to it. That connection is created through feeling understood. I know the author understands me, even if they’ve never met me, when they write characters that I can relate to deeply. (This is tricky for me, as I relate to so few characters in books – but some authors demonstrate that they do, indeed, understand or know someone who is like me in some fundamental way.)

Having something to look forward to creates a sense of anticipation which replaces my sense of anxiety. Anxiety is about dreading all the things that could go wrong in the future. Anticipation is about looking forward and feeling positive emotions about what good things I expect to happen. I can’t seem to help but “look forward,” (even after reading The Power of Now) but I can be excited for the future instead of dreading it. (This may be particularly important for IN*Js, the two Ni-dominant types.)

Having someone to talk to at night before I go to sleep allows me to discharge any negative energy that I built up over the course of the day, allowing a more deep, rejuvenating sleep. In the morning I can start fresh, no longer cluttered with yesterday’s burdens.

When I don’t have a specific project I’m working on, an alternative that may allow me to “see myself” is journaling. When I think of “projects” I am usually imagining something fairly large – like a book or board game – but small projects can give me the reflection I crave as well, such as an artowrk. Nonetheless, having a project that is large and ongoing creates a more lasting sense of satisfaction and self-connection because of my habitual pattern of working on it. To expand upon the theme of connection, an ongoing project is like a relationship: connection over time.

When I don’t have a good book to read, I can alternatively (if I’m very lucky) receive a sense of being “seen” by the “world” through a gratifying social experience or good movie. Most movies don’t do this for me, but The Peaceful Warrior did, as well as The Green Beautiful. Most social experiences don’t give me the sense of being “seen” because most people have trouble grappling with all of the vast lifestyle and perspective differences between myself and the dominant culture. A book, however, when it is very good and long, can give me that sense of being “seen by the world” (and thereby connected to the world) for weeks. I read a chapter each day and I get my daily dose of connection and intimacy with society in the abstract.

When I don’t have something to look forward to, one alternative is to become highly distracted by enthralling day-to-day experiences such as falling in love, an engrossing project, or events such playing board games, attending karaoke, or hosting a craft’n’chat. This sort of present-day engrossment rarely lasts more than two days at time. Eventually I tire and I begin to reflect on my life outside the scope of today and tomorrow, and without anchors in the future of things that I’m looking forward to, I inevitably begin asking, “Where is my life going?” And without an answer that feels definitive and positive, I begin to feel listless and depressed.

When I lack someone to talk to at night I can sometimes substitute with one of the other three – an engrossing project or journaling, a good book or phone call, or thoughts about something I’m looking forward to, such as the blossoming of the many flowers in my garden which will happen in the spring. However, these substitutes rarely are enough to overcome the sadness of lacking a companion to talk to. The most reliable alternative is a good book, but if I’m really sad then my mind will stray repeatedly away from the book.

All in all, these are all ways of seeking feeling “seen” – a sense of connection, camaraderie, belonging. These four “happiness keys” are all forms of connection:

• Connection with myself

• Connection with society at large

• Connection with my timeline, or purpose

• Connection with an ally

All in all, connection is what makes me feel good about my life.

Ingredient for Happiness: Body Care

June 20th 2018 (Six months later)

I’ve uncovered another vital ingredient for happiness: body care. It doesn’t matter what condition my body is in, there seems to be some level of attuned body care that I require to feel connected to my body (“embodied”) and thereby feel contentment as an integral being.

I was sad yesterday. When I tried to journal about my feelings, I recalled how someone had once promised to massage the knots in my neck until they went entirely away – something that nobody has ever been able to do. These knots have chronically existed since I was nine. Thus, the promise had been very meaningful for me, but it’s a tall order. Even though they tried, they didn’t persist long enough to succeed. I resented the fact that they gave up.

After journaling, while brushing my hair, I noticed I hadn’t washed my hair in several days. In fact, I hadn’t been showering as thoroughly overall. My hair was fairly tangled and it also occurred to me that I  had been brushing my hair a little less often. Perhaps I’d also been spending less time on dental hygiene. I certainly haven’t steamed my face or done a neti pot recently, I thought. I put these clues together with what I’d journaled about and I realized that these are all forms of body care.

I have also previously noticed a trend where showering more often seems to be directly connected to my mood. The happier I am, the more I seem to want to pop into the shower for a “quick rinse” after gardening or any other sweaty work. When I start to feel down, I go much longer without a shower. I’ve noticed that making myself shower even though I don’t feel like it helps break me out of my funk. Pun intended.

When I get sick, then I need a lot of body care. Is getting sick simply a need to reconnect with my body? I’m betting there isn’t actually a difference. Whether it is yoga, grooming or massage, I think I need at least an hour a day of body care to be happy, connected, and integrated (which, I think, are all different faces of the same thing).

Happiness from Fulfilling Programming

October 1st 2019 (Sixteen months later)

I didn’t wake depressed, but I noticed I soon felt that way. Why does this pattern keep repeating? Should I just make a point of forcing myself to get up first thing and kick into action before I have a chance to “think too long?” 

If happiness can only be accomplished by fulfilling programming (which may require rewriting it first), then it is easy to see why I’ve been struggling with depression my entire life. I repeatedly suffer from guilt about not fulfilling my “productivity” programming; this has become particularly challenging because I have begun to embrace something else: being restful and not obsessed with doing things. Yet as I lay around, thinking and dreaming up things, I quickly become unhappy. A voice inside tells me to actually act on these thoughts and dreams in my head, and all of society would applaud my acting far above my lying around and thinking.

It is hard to defend “laying around and thinking” without justifying it through the argument that it will lead to action later. We – I think it is safe to say “we” here – are so attached to the notion of accomplishing something with actions that we have even created a term for people who do not act: lazy. Being accused of laziness can feel like an awful attack; the stronger your belief in the all-important goal of accomplishing things the more it will hurt for someone to interpret your need for a rest as you being a “lazy person.”

I assert that there aren’t any lazy people. There are only people in need of something that “acting” is not providing. People play video games to meet emotional needs. People sleep or lay down to meet emotional or physical needs. People avoid certain kinds of activities because it would directly conflict with meeting their needs. In the end, it always comes down to meeting needs.

I’m comfortable with writing off “lazy” as a nonsense word. People inherently want things, and that wanting always entails doing something at some point. It isn’t laziness to give your body, mind, or heart the rest it needs.

And yet . . . I’m clearly not comfortable with myself merely lying about when I could be “making my dreams come true.” There is something horrifying about how long I can stay in place just thinking, thinking, thinking . . . It clashes so completely with my childhood programming. I recall being so proud of myself for learning to bounce out of bed with “bright eyes and a bushy tail.” Dad insisted on this, and I did it.

I remember being so proud of myself for virtually everything I did as a child – making a new drawing, filling up a page with words or math problems, planting a few flowers. I’m not very different today, except my art is far better. I still love the feeling of a page filling up with my creations. I still get that satisfying sense of being real and justified and important when I fill up a page with me.

When I stay in my head thinking, thinking, thinking for an hour or two . . . I feel loosely connected to myself, as if my body isn’t quite real, as if my room isn’t quite real, as if my entire life isn’t quite real. There is a knowing that everything is real, and yet there is a sense that I could just slip away from “reality” and go elsewhere. This dissociation concerns me.

If my programming is clashing with my behavior in a persistent, depressing way, then I have three options:

1. Stay unhappy.

2. Change my programming to match my behavior.

3. Change my behavior to match my programming.

Like everyone else, I’ve tried repeatedly to shift my behavior to reflect my programming. I’ve surrounded myself with inspiring quotes. I’ve woken to music. I’ve created morning rituals including writing my dreams and exercise. None of it has stuck, although all of it felt like it helped for a time.

I’ve also done a lot of “staying unhappy.” Being depressed is an art form where you manage to respond to even the most lovely weather, the most lovely conversation, and the most lovely food with total apathy or despair. Anyone who has ever felt depressed knows what it is like to become an instant master at this art. Like most depressed people, I’ve tried reasoning myself out of it. “Look at how much you’ve got going for you,” I say to myself, listing off multitudes of things to be grateful for. “Yeah, but there is this one thing here I don’t have, and I just can’t seem to get over it,” I reply to myself.

The second option, also known as transcending one’s programming, is also something I’ve worked on a lot, but it is the hardest of the three options to accomplish. It requires a foundational shift of deeply-held beliefs. If I have a mountain of evidence for why productivity is good (and I do), then I have to come up with an even larger mountain of evidence for why lounging around is better (which I haven’t).

I have a lot of good arguments for why taking some time for rest is essential. I have a lot of evidence supporting the power of meditation, introspection, journaling, and so on. But despite those arguments, I still can’t justify a life-long dearth of accomplishment. Thus, the real crux of the issue is how it feels when I’m laying around at times: like I just never want to get up.

I might know that I will get up, but the other half of the picture is missing, which is the feeling that I will want to get up. Since I know it but I don’t feel it, it is hard to believe it, and thereby I become depressed because it seems that I will lay there indefinitely. That scares me.

I suppose this is the same sort of feeling I’ve been trying to outwit by keeping a log of the general “feeling” of each day. This general day-feeling isn’t quite an emotion log (which I previously tried a year or two ago), but more like a “general mood log” where I try to capture the essence of a day within descriptive terms I call “vibes.” By doing this, I actually have proven to myself that I feel “inspired” as often as one in six days. It is actually my most common mood thus far in eighty-seven days of tracking!

“Inspired,” interestingly, is currently followed in second place by a vibe I’ve titled “labyrinth.” I’ve given the vibe this title because it is like wandering around inside an internal maze of thoughts and emotions. There is a sense of being stuck in dark, winding tunnels of thought. This is the “mood” which I am often in when I’m in a process, but being in that mood is by no means synonymous with actually doing some sort of consciousness alchemy.

I began tracking my vibes as a way of attempting to prove to myself that I do come back around no matter how dark things feel for some period of time. It’s actually working. For example, I can now verify that experiencing the “labyrinth” state is actually directly correlated with experiencing the “inspired” state in the day (or days) that follow.

Also, speaking of productivity . . . My third most experienced state is “industrious” – appearing once in eight days with my current data. This means that two of my three most common vibes are actually highly “productive” states. And here, you see, I am trying to use productivity itself as a way of justifying all the time I spend laying about thinking. As I said, actually changing one’s values – programming – is a much more challenging path than finding a way to work in harmony with it.

Escaping the programming we’re given by our parents and society at large seems nearly impossible – even when engaging in regular sessions of hypnosis, parts work, and other forms of consciousness alchemy. It seems more fruitful to find ways to exalt (or exploit) our programming. The fact that I can justify more restorative relaxation because it will lead me to more productivity is actually quite encouraging.

My parents gave me some tough programming to live up to; they wanted me to be a prodigy, to be impressive, to lead a highly fruitful life that stood out. I have ways of working with this: I can remind myself of all the things I have accomplished thus far – and all the ways in which I am impressive. I can find space for introspection, body care, and everything else I need without having to rewrite the core tenets of my programming. Instead, I can craft addendums from my accumulated wisdom.

Morning Rituals? I Prefer Emotion Rituals

October 9th 2020 (One year later)

Many people laud morning rituals. I’ve never found them to work for me. Today I realized why.

A few weeks ago I became depressed and overwhelmed. I didn’t understand why at first. It seemed like everything was even better than usual. My days were filled with interesting, fulfilling conversations, and I was learning a lot of new things. What was missing? I thought it was being creative that was missing, so I started trying to do creative things, except I was having trouble “getting into it.” My next idea was that my life was too scheduled, so I cleared my calendar. This worked for a little while, but soon I became lethargic again.

Then I realized the key: every morning I was getting out of bed with something in mind that I “had to” do. This past week I’ve made a policy of beginning the day with something creative, inspired, playful, or exciting. The one day where I didn’t do that – yesterday – was the day where I felt listless, confused, and miserable for much of the day.

It doesn’t seem to matter how long I do something inspired in the morning, so long as it is the first thing. From there, the entire day flows more smoothly, and creativity bubbles to the surface of my consciousness as I come into contact with even the most mundane activities.

I can say with confidence that starting my day with that positive energy makes me at least twice as likely to feel that my day was “productive” at the end of it, even if the inspired activity at the beginning of the day was playing a video game. I can also say that starting my day with something I “have to” do makes me at least twice as likely to find myself crying about my life, confused about what’s gone wrong, feeling lost and listless, at some point later in the day.

This morning I realized that this is why morning rituals help so many people. The self-care rituals of exercise, grooming, reading, and so on, help ground people in themselves in a way that makes them feel good. The key isn’t whether they are exercising, drinking a smoothie, or meditating. The key is that you begin the day on a positive note. For some people, ritual soon becomes automatic, and that automation becomes a comfortable backdrop for pleasant sensations and thoughts such as, “I’m taking great care of myself.”

The morning ritual doesn’t work for me because after the first couple days I’ve already turned it into the morning “have to” and resent myself for it. Unless, of course, you count “doing something inspired” as a ritual itself. If so, I do enjoy a ritual of emotion. That is, I like to feel inspired and creative in the morning. In the afternoon, I like to feel productive. In the evening, I like to feel accomplished. As I get ready for bed, I like to feel nurtured, cherished, heard, understood, and generally loved. 

Yet, somewhat ironically, to accomplish these patterns of emotion, I have to maintain a pattern of not being too patterned. Too much repetition and my emotional pattern switches from the above description to feeling lethargic in the morning, guilty in the afternoon, depressed in the evening, and nearly hysterical at night.

Act on Your Tiny Inspirations

October 14th 2020 (Five days later)

You may think that you can’t afford to act on your inspirations, but the truth is that you can’t afford not to. The price for ignoring your inspirations is depression and disease. Cancer is the epitome of this, but lesser conditions (such as constipation) are other clear signs. 

A trap that I fall into several times a year goes like this: I have a small idea or inspiration but I ignore it because it is “pointless,” or “unimportant.” Then, later, I have a bigger idea that really is important. Unfortunately, this bigger idea feels like “too much” and I don’t feel up to it. Can you see what happened there?

When you ignore little inspirations, three things happen: 

1. You lose momentum (or the potential for momentum), 

2. You miss an opportunity to build your sense of empowerment. 

3. You reinforce the idea that there is “no point” in doing or having what you want. 

These three things are a disaster for your mental, emotional, and physical health.

It doesn’t matter how small the inspiration is: act on it. In a way, it is more important to act on those small inspirations because of how large a message you are sending to yourself by saying you can’t make space in your life for such a small act. 

If you feel inspired to dust your monitor, do it. 

If you feel inspired to pick a flower from your garden for a vase, do it. 

If you feel inspired to buy some fresh, organic blueberries, do it. 

If you feel inspired to put a ribbon in your hair, do it. 

The more small inspirations you pile up, the more empowered and energetic you will feel, and when the big inspiration comes along, you’ll be ready for it.

Happiness: Raederle’s Personal Formula

2020-2025

With five years of refinement this is where my Formula for Happiness currently stands. 

Morning Keys | Inspiration

Note: Inspiration is deeply tied with feeling energized.

✩ Feeling inspired.

✔ Waking up and having someone there in the room. Ideally in a separate bed, but within close reach.

✔ Having space, time, and resources to act on everyday inspirations.

✔ Actually acting on inspirations.

⌦ Ideally I would have the space, time, and resources to act on all my salient inspirations – which would include: building my dream house, founding a community which operates a retreat center, and conducting neuropsychology studies.

⌦ It is important to remember to act on tiny inspirations such as wiping the dust from something. Small acts foster empowerment and improvement which generate the needed energy required to act on larger inspirations.

⌦ Focusing on inspirations that feel achievable for my given level of energy and emotional fortitude. 

⌦ Having a sense of optimism about my success.

✔  Having inspiration that is exciting enough to want to act on it more than I want to stay asleep (which is dramatically more likely if the above are in place).

Afternoon Keys | Productivity, Learning, Exploration

✩ Feeling productive.

✔  Access to fueling, healthy, tasty, pretty, colorful food.

✔  A beautiful, attractive, spacious environment.

✔  Learning something new, or working on an inspired project, or exploring a new possibility.

✔  Having something to look forward to in the evening.

✔  Having something to look forward to within the next eight days (that isn’t too stressful to prepare for).

❀ Having something to look forward to later in the year (such as a holiday, vacation, or trip).

❀ Having a good novel (story) to read when I need a break.

Early Evening Keys | Satisfaction

✩ Feeling accomplished.

✩ Feel satiated physically and satisfied emotionally.

Late Evening Keys | Connection

✩ Feeling nurtured, cherished, heard, understood, and generally loved.

✔ Having a minimum of two hours of connection time each day. 

⌦ This was calculated based on my daily log spreadsheets from 2012 to 2015. I consistently became depressed and disconnected from my husband when we spent less than two hours of quality time together each day.

⌦ This doesn’t have to happen in the late evening, but often it doesn’t help as much when it happens earlier in the day because it disrupts a sense of inspiration in the morning, or it disrupts productivity during the day, leading to a lack of satisfaction later. Also, early-day connection often doesn’t actually substitute for late-evening connection.

✔ Feeling deeply connected with someone.

⌦ This would, ideally, mean feeling completely safe to be any aspect of myself with them.

❀ Talking through anything that is bothering me with someone who listens, understands, validates, and offers insightful thoughts in response. Each of these four parts of the response is critical to my feeling safe, seen, heard, felt, and connected.

Night Keys | Sound Sleep

✩ Feeling complete.

✔ Having someone in the room who will wake me, listen to me, and comfort me if I’m having a nightmare.

✔ Having someone in the room who will occasionally stay up with me doing something that feels definitively more important than sleep such as following an inspiration, having sex, or doing shadow work.

✔ Sleeping at least nine hours and twenty minutes twice a week. (And only staying up when I’m inspired by something that genuinely feels more important than sleep.)

❀ Being the right temperature with skin that is comfortably dry yet moisturized.

⌦ Being physically comfortable in general is particularly important to sleep, which means spine support, neck support, comfortable temperature, relaxed muscles, no gas, no itchy skin, no shooting pains, no sweating, etc.

Daily Keys (Any Time)

✔ Self-trust. I must be confident in my own ability to be the supreme arbiter of my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

✔ Feeling contained, which is created through knowing someone will be deeply there for me if I need them.

✔ Fresh air. Specifically air that has been enriched and filtered by plants.

✔ Some kind of body care that feels restorative. 

⌦ This can include any number of the following: epsom salt bath, hair brushing, teeth brushing, dental flossing, water picking, neti pot, ear oiling, drinking hot tea, receiving lymphatic or muscular massage, body oiling, and dry brushing.

⌦ If I’m feeling particularly down it can help a lot to receive these from someone I feel close to as this type of care is something that all of my fragments can actually feel, hear, and see. (My babyself can’t hear comforting words – so when I’m not feeling better despite someone saying “all the right things” it is a clue that I’m emotionally stuck in an infant fragment.)

✩ Feeling satisfied with my overall life trajectory.

Weekly Keys

✔ Significant exercise two to five days out of the week.

✔ Oxytocin production: four to six days out of the week I need significant cuddling, particularly heart-to-heart contact with minimal clothing – with someone I feel completely safe with.

✔ Having fulfilling time spent in a wide variety of my fragments (identities/parts/vibes) – vulnerable, creative, guru, student, sexual, driven, spiritually identified, playful, etc.

Feeling Energized: A Key to Feeling Inspired

I noted above that feeling energized is highly related to feeling inspired. This is what my Pocketbook of Self-Directed Wisdom says (thus far) about what personally makes me feel energized. Like everything on this page, I make these lists for myself, so this isn’t meant to be a prescriptive formula for you. I invite you to write your own formulas for yourself, utilizing mine only as a potential template or source of inspiration.

My Energizers

✔ Bare feet! Or sock-foot. I need to feel the floor, the earth. This helps improve my posture and remember to raise my arches, which in turn impacts my whole body posture.

✔ Hydration, a clear gut and colon.

✔ Micro-movements or “exercise snacks.” Bouncing on my toes, stretching while cooking, running in place, kicks while brushing my teeth, shoulder rolls at my desk, “neck lifts” in bed, twists, crunches, knee-dips, jaw movement, ankle rotations; do it!

✔ Good air quality, fresh air, the smell of flowers.

✔ Empowerment, especially when combined with desire.

✔ Desire, which is caring about something. Wanting a change, and feeling capable together create empowerment, which is what makes energized action feel natural.

✔ Inspiration, which is strongly linked to energy levels.

✔ Understanding and then resolving a source of emotional distress, which is a prerequisite for caring about things and desiring things.

My Energy Sappers

✖ Shoes and slippers, which make me feel less nimble, cut-off from the earth, unbalanced, slow, cumbersome, awkward, and heavy.

✖ Constipation, or a general “gut burden.”

✖ Overly tight pants, which press into my gut creating a constipated-like experience.

✖ A dismissive attitude. This is tied in with detachment and dissociation. It is the opposite of caring – an important key in motivation.

New Formulas?

March 9th 2025

Now I think it may be time for me to start over and reconstruct my formula for “happiness” into multiple formulas. Largely due to my Vibe Log Project, I’ve realized that my notion of being a happy, fulfilled person has two different subjective “states of being.” These states can be described by the following collections of vibes:

1. Happy, Playful, Adventurous, Flirtatious, Ecstatic, Excited

2. Inspired, Insightful, Intuitive, Introspective, Yogic

The first of these is relational. This state has to do with interacting with other people and my environment in ways that make me feel energized and abundant.

The second of these is internal. This state has to do with being gainfully immersed in my own curiosity, concepts, and emotions.

The relational state of happiness is characterized by a “soaring high” feeling – bouncing on the tips of my toes, going out and doing “fun” things, and playfully interacting with others.

The internal state of happiness is not necessarily something I would actually call “happy” in the specific sense (although it applies in the general sense). This internal, self-relating state isn’t as energetic (perhaps because it isn’t bouncing off the energies of others or my environment as much), but it is as satisfying.

The relational state is, quite obviously, about connecting with others.

The internal state is about connecting with myself.

And yet – both states require connection with “self” and “other” to actually feel satisfying. The relational state requires bringing my authentic self (my boundaries and truths) to the proverbial table. And the internal state requires inputs (such as books) and outputs (such as essays) which allow me to feel like my internal state is breathing – inhaling concepts and exhaling my own creations. Thus, the more extroverted slant of the happy-playful state is perhaps not the biggest difference between it and the more introverted inspired-insightful state.

Before trying to uncover what’s different about them, perhaps I should underscore the one remarkable thing about each state which is the same: I can rotate around the vibes listed for each state for months without feeling like my life is particularly “lacking.” 

The vibes rotation between Happy, Playful, Adventurous, Flirtatious, Ecstatic, and Excited is quite satisfying even if I’m not taking the time to introspect or uncover new insights.

Likewise, the vibes rotation between Inspired, Insightful, Intuitive, Introspective, and Yogic is deeply satisfying even if I’m not having any experiences of excitement, flirtation or playfulness.

This is extremely interesting to me because of how much I seem to rely on a certain level of variety of internal states in order to feel generally “okay.” I can slip into an eerie sense of everything being “not quite right” when I spend too much time in one aspect of myself. (This most commonly happens when I’m stuck in a productivity-centric aspect of myself.) I wrote about this a couple days ago in my break-through entry I titled, Choosing Guideposts for Living.

Having realized that I have two different “pinnacle” states to aim for, I now wonder if I might benefit from attempting to rewrite my happiness formula as two different formulas – one for each state.

Choosing Guideposts for Living

I have tried to capture the formula for happiness in what was previously known as my Happiness Keys Document. (Now it is encapsulated in a compendium with the working title: Raederle’s Pocketbook of Self-Directed Wisdom.) This formulaic approach has aided me many times, but it fails to capture the subjective stream-of-consciousness that makes me feel like “myself” – which is, in my own estimation, a happy (or content) version of myself.

For example, just last night I was revisited by the realization of why reading a particular type of nonfiction feels beneficial and regulating to my wellbeing. Reading the heartfelt perspectives of highly intelligent individuals – who had something they burned to share – helps ground me in a will to live through my experience of relation, inspiration, and curiosity. It lends purpose to my life – not through that which I create – but through giving life itself purpose. Works of nonfiction – or philosophy loosely draped in fiction – remind me that there is a “great truth task” (as Dr. Bronner soap bottles tell us), and I am part of that task just by sensing, dreaming, and articulating.

This insight into the value of a certain kind of nonfiction was preceded by the insight that reading itself – even of fiction – helps order my mind through the parade of syntax, narrative, and reason. The simple fact that another being possesses the ability to create a linear stream of words which will carry me through a non-linear stream of symbols is deeply heartening. Their ability to render art in the form of story and concept is so beautiful to behold that it fills my heart with its own yearning to be, whilst simultaneously filling my mind with a desire to understand. My whole being is filled up with a need to create in response to the creations of others.

Perhaps for someone like myself, who requires the dual nourishment of symbology and beauty, my interpretive creations which are made in response to the creations of others, is the true conversation which I most dearly wish to engage in. This appears, for example, in my desire to lead workshops. The workshop itself is something I devise in response to the creations of luminaries who have inspired me, and the participants in the workshop are invited to reply with their own creations. Yet these “conversations” – the game of tag we can play with our creations – have hitherto left me unsatisfied. Creation is an outpouring, and I crave an equitable replenishment from liberated beings, yet I’m surrounded by those held in the shackles of institutionalized thought. The few who have not been shackled are weighed down by the seemingly insurmountable fatigue of constantly being rebuked and condemned by tamed perceptions and judgments.

Returning to the earlier subject: the simple truth of my wishing to formulate my happiness points to a, perhaps troubling, truth about my beliefs: I feel it is superior to be happy. Furthermore, I identify with my happy (or at least content) self in a way that I do not with my unhappy self. My other subjective experiences resent this, and hate having this value (of happiness being superior) thrust at me in any way – particularly if I am unhappy at the time.

Statements which assume happiness is superior include, “When you’re feeling more like yourself,” and, “Happiness is a choice,” and, “When you come around,” and “Things will be more clear by the light of day.” Our culture assumes we will be more sober and sound when we are free from unhappy feelings. Yet I disavow myself of this assumption! The greatest thoughts are not wholly conceived from frameworks of opioid optimism, nor from pits of pessimism. Great wisdom comes from interweaving the cumulative lessons of grief, fear, joy, and satisfaction.

I’m not leading myself down the rabbit-hole which my Dzogchen-minded friend took me on some months ago: that technically, there is nothing objectively superior about health, and that I’ve simply chosen to enshrine it. After having rejected the path his insight led me down, I said to him, “I need a guiding star.” His insight had served as an intellectual distraction, yet what I had truly wanted was helpful guidance.

Even though it is not my aim to wander back down the path of questioning “rightness” along lines of total objectivity, it is useful to note that I’ve enshrined happiness in the same way that I’ve enshrined health – to the point of conflating them with one another. Just because they share a pedestal doesn’t mean they are necessarily related, yet, I believe them to be. And as my journaling revealed to me yesterday, I must second-guess myself far less often. I wish to be as decisive as I was at twenty-nine, if not as I was at nineteen, and that requires a great-deal of self-trust.

Self-trust may be one of the more ephemeral core elements of my formula for happiness. While reading aids me in creating the subjective internal experience I crave, it isn’t the reading in and of itself which I need. It is the camaraderie with another creative, inquisitive being that gives me a greater sense of confidence and self-trust. Those are some of the actual experiences which I need. 

Yet when I’m not experiencing confidence and self-trust, it is too easy to fall into a paradox: how can I trust my own notions of these abstract concepts when I’m experiencing a lack of trust in my own perceptions? This is why one’s ego fights so desperately to defend its own perspective: self doubt can lead to a literal sort of insanity, where no thought or feeling can be trusted. And perhaps this is why genius intellect is rare: only the individuals who can somehow question everything and doubt all conclusions – without doubting their own core perceiving self – can actually achieve nuanced understandings. And of those who can achieve the understandings themselves, only those who can question and doubt endlessly without doubting their ability to communicate can actually go forward and teach the subtle differentiations.

Once again returning to the initial topic: I’m unsure how to capture a subjective state of being in a formula. I could, perhaps, write a hypnotic script for entering a certain state of consciousness, but that prickles my conscience. Forcing myself out of one state into another reeks of heavy-handed control and force. Is it not violent to unilaterally decide that some particular state I’m in is inferior, and thus I should immediately and utterly convert myself to some superior state? Isn’t that the reason why we now possess the coined phrase “toxic positivity?”

It seems wrong to force the change upon myself, like an overbearing parent blathering about “knowing what’s best,” yet it also is the case that I often want out of whatever mental labyrinth in which I feel trapped. Whenever I feel the need to be “rescued” or “helped” is exactly when my “happiness formula” becomes relevant. Thus, there does seem to be a consensus of my inner counsel in the value of possessing an effective mood-shifting formula.

In fact, this goes back to the two penultimate goals which I’ve enshrined: health and happiness. These are logical things to revere above all else because all else which I value emerges from them. 

For example, I value honesty and transparency. If I am not a healthy, happy person, I may not be able to “afford” the rigors of being transparent. It requires a great deal more energy to be authentic without being an ass than it does to simply obscure the truth with polite “white lies.” 

To say that I am “allergic” to something simplifies a conversation, but it also eliminates the beautiful potentials created by true transparency: an enlightening conversation. The “innocent” lie of convenience becomes a wall between me and the other person, preventing true connection or mutual edification. Perhaps this person I’ve announced an “allergy” to has a complex relationship with their health too – or at least has a close friend who does – and has something useful to tell me; I would never discover what they know because I have planted myself in a field of convenience where little enlightenment ever blossoms.

My conclusion is that I’ve enshrined health and happiness rightfully. So it follows that every tool which substantially aids me in the endless process of pursuing H and H is worth possessing. So now I may also conclude that a formula for happiness – and for health – is a worthy goal of paramount importance.

Having established the “goodness” or “right-headedness” of working on perfecting a happiness formula, I can continue to contemplate how to create pathways to happiness which are  more effective than the formula I have assembled over the years.

It seems safe to say that a concrete bulleted list denoting the keys to my happiness is rather limited in its effectiveness. It can point to literal gaps in my most effective self-regulation strategies (such as failure to read engaging books), but it doesn’t serve as a hypnotic induction for changing my state of consciousness. Yet, ironically, the reading of said engaging books actually does serve as said hypnotic induction. 

The hypnotic induction is important, but it is the new state of being which is the goal. As my own formula states, one of the keys to my happiness is “having fulfilling time spent in a wide variety of my fragments” including “vulnerable, creative, guru, student, sexual, driven, spiritual, and playful.” In other words, part of what makes me happy is the visitation to many different subjective states. Each subjective state can feel like becoming a different persona possessing different values and goals, but as different as each state may feel, they are all parts of myself, and to “feel whole” requires visiting each state. Hence why my accumulated wisdom on my own personal happiness states I should have fulfilling time in a wide variety of my subjective states over the course of any given week. 

Merely existing in one or two states over the course of five to seven days makes me quite miserable – which is why I find it anathema to commit to the intense specialization required to make a profitable career in modern times. Being a whole, happy, healthy person is directly at odds with this degree of specialization – for me, at least. Thus, I can toss the idea that I should ever attempt to contort myself into the sort of reliability which most entrepreneurs expect of themselves; an agent or marketer could do that with my work, but I can not. In order to maintain my own healthy engagement in life – a will to participate in the “great truth task” – I must allow, and strongly encourage, a cascading plethora of internal states.

Instead of berating myself for the transition from being an energetic extroverted socialite last week, to being a subdued introspecting writer this week, I can applaud myself for courageously accepting the ever-shifting landscape of what it means to support my health and happiness. And in this self-applause I continue to rebuild the self-trust I misplaced last year.

Further Reflections

What I wrote earlier points directly to why I value inspiration so highly. Inspiration is when we are on the path of “the great truth task.” One could say it is the penultimate indication of health because it is when we are doing what we are meant to be doing. Inspiration points the way, creating a hierarchy of priorities in any given moment with deep accuracy. This is why I feel very directed and purposeful when I am inspired – and conversely quite lost and directionless when inspiration is blocked.

Inspiration becomes blocked when one feels disempowered. One has to believe one is capable of achieving one’s desires. Furthermore, one must have a desire. This is why I reject the idea that we should ever pursue the elimination of desires. To yearn for something seems to be the pinnacle of aliveness. Since I am using health and happiness as my guiding stars – and the will to live that these entail – desire is another lauded experience. This returns me to self-trust, because we must trust that our own desire is actually valid and useful, and that our attempts to bring about what we desire will be fruitful – which is another way of saying that we must experience a degree of empowerment in order to trust ourselves.

Your Identity = Your Boundaries

 

Your identity is the sum of your boundaries: the things to which you say “Yes,” and the things which you say “No.”

What is your favorite food? Your answer is a preference, a boundary, a piece of your selfhood. 

To tell you, “No, that’s not your favorite food,” is to gaslight you.

To tell you, “That’s not a very good choice,” may shame you.

To tell you, “You must choose something else instead,” is to violate you – by violating your boundaries. 

Boundary violation is so painful because it is an attack on our right to selfhood, identity, and ego. When you say “I,” you are referring to your collection of boundaries, which are your preferences. Some of those preferences are needs – which may include physical sovereignty (for example, not being attacked). Some of those preferences are wants – which may include getting to eat your favorite food every day. Needs are rigid boundaries which, when compromised, leave you feeling like less of yourself – less of a whole human being. Wants are soft boundaries which are flexible, workable, shiftable; unmet wants don’t lead to feeling like your selfhood is ruptured.

Your “I” is always partially obscured – still being uncovered by you as your emotions serve as a guidance system, reflecting back to you your personal truths. It can never be wholly seen at once because it is in flux. As you learn, your preferences in life evolve. Sometimes a good friend may respectfully question your boundaries, helping reflect your choices back to yourself. Something such as our “favorite food” will likely change many times. Yet our most critical needs – such as nourishment and compassion – remain constant.

The archetypal notion of codependency is sacrificing critical needs – fundamental parts of your selfhood – in order to experience confluence with someone else. The archetypal notion of narcissism is being unwilling to bend – even about your wants – even if bending could support someone else’s needs. Both perspectives fail to find the deepest intimacy which is found when both parties can put their whole selves forward. The largest difference between the two is that narcissists don’t believe real love is possible for them – or that it even exists at all.

Love is including someone else in your selfhood: to evaluate, prioritize, and consider another person’s boundaries alongside your boundaries. Instead of “you versus them,” the evaluation process becomes, “this need,” versus “that need.” It doesn’t matter whose needs they are, but only how important each need is to the wellbeing of all the networked beings who share love for one another.

Loving requires understanding. You can not include someone else’s needs as part of your own needs if you don’t understand their needs. If you assume that other beings need the same things as you, then you will kill your fish by tucking it into your bed, and you will kill your dog by feeding it chocolate, and you will kill your spouse by starving them of the true intimacy that can only come from truly knowing them.

A loving marriage is built on knowing each other deeply – as completely as possible – and utilizing that knowledge to be able to take their needs into account with every action you take. When choosing a vocation or vacation, ask how this affects your wife. When choosing to meditate or medicate, ask how this affects your husband. Whether you’re arranging your calendar or your closet, ask how this affects your spouse.

A community is built on every community member showing every other member this same love: to learn about them, to come to understand them, to advocate for them. Community takes every person’s boundaries – both needs and wants – and cares for all of them together.

Community doesn’t assume that all people are equal. When it comes to any skill, individuals can be ranked on their ability to perform that skill. This ranking creates hierarchies. Hierarchies of capability aren’t inherently dangerous, but many people instinctively balk at anything which proposes some people are somehow “better” than others – because all too often this is conflated with “more deserving.” Yet true belonging in a community isn’t determined by the sum of your skills: your merit isn’t what makes your needs valid. Community assumes that all of its members have equally valid selfhood, and thus, equally valid boundaries.

Community isn’t built by everyone choking back their feelings and self-sacrificing. Neither community nor marriage can be healthy through compromise – where everyone cuts a piece of their identity away for “the greater good.” If everyone is bleeding from the wounds of their damaged selfhood, it is “a greater bad.” Instead of compromising ourselves for each other, we can instead vulnerably express the truth of our beings and work toward true consensus.

Consensus is the process of understanding, validating, and prioritizing the boundaries of every member of a group – which could be a family, a polycule, a tribe, a village, a team, or a company. When one person in the group says, “This is unacceptable to me,” we must respond with curiosity and compassion. Their “No” may be, in turn, a “No” for us, but we must set that aside for the moment and learn more about their position. We can’t not respond to their truth with love until we understand.

Consensus may be reached through someone retracting a boundary they previously stated. However, in order for this to be a healthy choice, it must be something that is chosen through a profound internal shift. Something that was a “No” for you may become a “Yes” when your understanding of someone else’s need causes a change of heart for you. This transforms something that would have been a compromise – leading to resentment – into something you feel grateful you can give to another cherished being.

Giving something to another should feel warm and good. If, instead, it burns and feels bad, it is because we have confused giving with giving up. To give up part of ourselves – to violate our own boundaries – is not a gift. When you are including others as part of yourself, you can not crowd your selfhood out of the picture. Your wellbeing is connected to theirs, and thus, hurting yourself is also hurting them – and thus, you can not hurt yourself for their benefit. 

Life-affirming communal experience requires knowing the difference between your needs and wants, and being able to put the vulnerable truth of your needs on the table – as well as being flexible about your wants to make space for the needs of others. You must be able to weigh the boundaries of others – and your own – on the same scale. If everyone vulnerably shares their truth, we can work toward solutions that make everyone more whole. Only when everything is shared, and every idea is tried, can we establish whether there is a true incompatibility.

Incompatibility is when our deepest needs don’t align with someone else’s deepest needs. This creates an irreparable boundary conflict. In these cases, individuals may have to leave a job, marriage, or community. But if we are accustomed to the creative problem-solving required to reach true consensus, we may choose to change the context of how we relate to someone rather than cutting them from our lives. Maybe you stay with the company, but move to another position. Maybe you stay married, but create separate sleeping spaces. Maybe you stay in the community, but change the role you play within it.

Both codependency and narcissism believe incompatibility is the baseline reality. It is the belief that you can not be a self-actualized person and have connection, companionship, and community simultaneously. Codependency expresses this belief in incompatibility through self-sacrifice – preemptively violating one’s own boundaries in favor of smoothing relations with others. Narcissism believes that, in addition to being incompatible, connection is impossible, and thus a pure narcissist fails to bend any boundary for any reason. This belief in the conflict between self-actualization and connection is what I call the co-narc pattern. 

Self-actualization is bringing the authentic truth of your boundaries in alignment with the life you’re living. This doesn’t mean you have an epiphany about yourself and immediately abandon people you made commitments to, but it may mean that you tell them honestly about what you’ve realized about yourself and ask them if they see any way to accommodate your truth alongside theirs. This process is about working toward truly honoring yourself whilst also honoring all the creatures with whom you share a bond.

Honoring ourselves is both about having the integrity to listen to our own inner voices of truth and giving others who have become attached to us the opportunity to hear those truths and reflect upon them. Being honorable is listening to their input and needs – even if it seems inevitable that the best course is to change the roles we are playing in each other’s lives.

To be a person of integrity is to integrate our thoughts, emotions, and actions into an aligned stream all working together to uphold our boundaries. When integral, harmonious cooperation is available within the individual, then it is more readily expanded to dyadic bonds, their familial unit, and to their wider community. When people are integrating –  working for one another’s wholeness – great healing becomes possible.

Healing is experiencing the opposite of the pains we’ve been through. These pains consist of boundary violations: some which hurt us by enmeshing us and others which hurt us by abandoning us. Enmeshment traumas include invalidating, caging, and attacking. Abandonment traumas include betrayals, loneliness, and withdrawals. True loving slowly works to heal both kinds of wounds, as it both respects our autonomous, integral selves (soothing enmeshment wounds) whilst also offering the intimacy found in vulnerable consensus-making (soothing abandonment wounds).

Intimacy is seeing into others; loving is compassionately acting on what we see. When the staggering power of this is grasped, we can understand the wisdom in teachings such as loving thy neighbor as oneself – loving thy enemy as oneself. To love our spouse, our neighbor, and even our enemy is to understand, validate, and caretake their boundaries – their selfhood.

When we can caretake the boundaries of all beings in one grand, compassionate consensus process, then we can have world peace. We are “all one or none” – we suffer the consequences of everyone’s trauma. Every shooting, bombing, and war started with a child who suffered deeply and was cut off from connection. When the whole world becomes one community, then we will finally leave the narcissistic relationship we have with the planet, and begin healing the wounds we’ve left on Gaia herself.