A few years back I worked as the program manager for the doctorate program of an acupuncture college. My boss, the director of the program, made it a point to constantly compliment my work, particularly in front of others. Look at this wonderful handout Marianne made, he’d say, waving the paper around. It’s just a handout, I’d mutter, feeling like I was ten years old, getting praised for coloring within the lines. I felt patronized and doubted his sincerity. I couldn’t stand the attention. When I went on a cruise with my ex-fiance’s family, their constant solicitous concern for my sea queasiness made me crazy. My therapist found it amusing that while I’d been craving more attention my entire life, I had such a difficult time accepting it. Apparently the feelings, although generally pleasant, made me uncomfortable because they were unfamiliar.
In my session with life coach Frank Gjata, he explained the happiness thermostat to me. Every individual has a built-in thermostat for happiness – that there is only so much good fortune an individual can tolerate before needing to bring the level down again. If someone has too many things going well, he or she starts to feel uncomfortable, and will usually do something to sabotage his or her success. Apparently, feeling too good is terrifying.
He said that explained why celebrities who seem to have it all are continually implicated in scandals. On a more ordinary level, most people have had the experience of spending a great getaway weekend with a partner only to ruin it by starting an argument on the way home. He advised getting away for a bit after experiencing a close connection with someone – going for a walk or taking a bath, for example – to savor feeling good instead of engaging in the usual destructive pattern. Tension inside the body is usually present before the feelings are identified, so tuning in regularly can help limit the control that emotions hold over behavior.
Writer and speaker Gay Hendricks, president of the Hendricks Institute, also discusses this in his book, Five Wishes. One day he was enjoying some yoga and stretching and started to worry about his daughter. It dawned on him that there was no reason to imagine potential problems when he hadn’t even heard from her. He was hit with a realization: “What if the good feeling itself had given rise to the scramble of anxious thoughts that had flooded my mind? Did I have an upper limit of how good I could let myself feel before bringing myself back down?” He wondered why people would stop the flow of good feelings when they felt them – perhaps they didn’t believe they were worthy of them, or maybe human beings simply never learned how to maintain positive feelings for an extended period of time. Gay told his wife about his insight, and together they examined their lives to find their patterns of conflict. It turned out that difficulties did arise more frequently after feeling good, on Friday when enjoying the end of the work week or Sunday evening after being close earlier in the day.
My ex-fiance used to dry heave early in the morning – after we’d had a really great weekend or evening together. It always confused me that he would feel like throwing up when things were going well – seemed so counter-intuitive. The better the time we had together, the more sure I was that he would be retching the next morning. I was usually right. It didn’t make for a pleasant engagement.
I know that I’m not comfortable with praise or excessive attention, though I’m not aware of what I do to sabotage them. I’m sure I do limit the flow of good feeling in my life, but I’ll have to watch for it and discover my own patterns.
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