One of the biggest misconceptions is that we should always pursue happiness. Now with corona our happiness is put to the test. For example, because you have lost your job or because you feel lonely. However, happiness is also overrated. In fact, allowing yourself to feel deeply miserable at times can help you to feel happier afterwards. My advice: feel the negative emotions.

Negative emotions are useful

There is nothing wrong with being happy. The danger lies in the idea that we should always be happy. With this expectation, we leave little room for negative emotions. When we deny or hide negative emotions (like sadness, fear or anger) we will miss some important signals.

All our emotions, both positive and negative, have a function. They tell us what we need. That restless feeling when you get up in the morning before you go to work. Or the disappointment that you always feel within that one friendship. It can all be signals that you are missing or wanting something.

What to do with negative emotions?

By standing still and listening to that unhappy feeling, you make contact with yourself, with who you are and what you need. This can be challenging. Especially if you are not used to this. It starts with awareness: learn to recognize when you feel happy.

These tips can help:

• If someone asks you how you are doing, tell them how you are doing. Acknowledge when you feel bad and try to share it with others.
• Don’t be afraid of having unhappy feelings. Realize that negative emotions are not there forever and also pass.
• Remember that negative emotions are not meaningless, but can give you a lot of insight.

NiceDay app

In the NiceDay app you can indicate how your mood is. Set a mood reminder for yourself several times a day. This can help you think more about how you really feel.

I sit at my desk and listen to the silence around me. It is so quiet that I hear my own thoughts in my head. It is suffocating. Now that I am at home because of the coronavirus, thoughts and memories seem to surface. I say to myself: “I thought I got rid of it”. But I also think of what my therapist once said to me: “if there is anything left, it will come up eventually”.

What I feel?

I feel grief and fear. The sadness makes my body feel heavy. I find it more difficult to get up. I can’t fight it. Actually, I don’t even want to fight. It’s allowed to just be there. This, I wouldn’t have said a few months ago. Sometimes the grief lingers in my throat. These are the most painful moments. Usually I try to focus on the feeling and I allow it to be there. Sometimes tears flow and sometimes it slowly ebbs away. The fear makes my breathing go up and makes my head dizzy. Sometimes I get sick and I can’t eat. But the fear and sadness together make me feel insecure about everything I do and feel.

What comes will also go away

This time of “quarantine” makes people with mental illness very vulnerable. It is important to maintain social contacts and do fun things. Unfortunately, going out to meet a friend in a cafe is not possible. It takes creativity to deal with the demons in your head. I try to maintain a routine for myself. As soon as I get up, I immediately take a shower, because if I walk around in my pajamas all day, I won’t feel any better. I also try to study, but I don’t force anything. If it doesn’t work, that’s okay. I notice that my creativity level is higher than normal. I write more and sing daily. Fortunately, therapy also continues via video calling. By taking good care of myself and listening to my body during this period, I will get through this period.

Social activities and corona

The news is also not helping. Everyday I wake up with notifications on my screen: corona this, corona that. What I hate the most is that we are probably in this physical social isolation until June the 1ste. I find it painful to sit 1.5 meters away from your friend and not be able to hug each other. Until April 6 I could manage, but June 1….

I feel better when I have my friends around me. Now I only see and speak them via Skype or Whatsapp. These are difficult times for everyone. I think there is insufficient attention to people with psychological complaints. We are also vulnerable, even if it is not visible from the outside. And then there are the psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists who still give us (online) therapy. What would we do without them?

So I would say: “An applause for the people of mental health care!”

And a tip: read the blogs on NiceDay that can help you get through the day. Hold on and take good care of yourself!

Love, Ghyta

Thoughts come and go. At stressful moments, many thoughts will float around in your head. These are usually thoughts with the doom scenarios and most of the time they will give you more stress. At pleasant moments, positive thoughts will pass. For example, you look forward to an event and only thinking about it makes you smile. At sad moments the thoughts will be negative. But is this thought really true?

Negative thoughts

For me, It is the negative thoughts that demand the most energy. Once they are present, they dominate all other thoughts. It is therefore a difficult task to counteract the negative thoughts. What I do when this happens I write down the negative thoughts on paper. This can be es very confronting, because these thoughts can  contain the ugliest things. Something is emotionally, because of the confrontation. It may be that you are very angry for a moment, or cry for a few minutes. Another way to deal with negative thoughts is to let them “float” through your head and do with them. You sit on a chair, as it were, and look at a screen on which the thoughts can be seen. You don’t have to do anything else with them.

To challenge

In therapy I learned to challenge thoughts. You write down the negative thought and look for evidence for and against the thought. You usually find that the arguments prove the thoughts are not realistic. After you have listed the arguments, you form a new realistic thought about yourself based on the arguments. Then you can write the correct thought on a post-it note and stick it to  your mirror. In this way you can remind yourself every day that you are a valuable person.

Positive thoughts

Negative thoughts are snowed under by the negative thoughts in my head. The positive thoughts can actually make you feel better. But then how do you let the positive thoughts prevail over the negative ones? First of all, you could challenge or write down your thoughts. If you notice a positive thought about yourself as a result of an event, you can “store” that feeling in your head. If there is another moment when you can only think negatively, then you can bring out the event, the feeling and thought that you had with it.

You are in charge of your thoughts. Don’t let them be in charge of you!

Love,

Ghyta

Jealousy: some describe it as a burning feeling in their chest and some as a feeling of becoming sick. What is jealousy and how do you deal with it best? Psychologist Britt explains it to you.

There are two types of jealousy: rational jealousy and irrational jealousy. The first one is seen as reasonable jealousy, for example you have reason to feel like that because your partner cheated on you. However, irrational jealousy is based on insecurity and fear. There is no cause to feel this way, but still you make up bad scenarios in your head. 

For both forms of jealousy it is ok to feel jealous, sad and angry. But that it is ok, does not mean that you should actually behave in a jealous way, like constantly checking your partner. This behaviour stands in the way of you and your partner’s happiness. Luckily there is another way!

Take a step back

While feeling jealous, one could experience multiple negative thoughts. Recognize this moment and remind yourself to take a step back. Ask yourself the following questions: 

• Is this kind of jealousy rational or irrational? 
• Is there really something going on or am I the one making things up in my head?
• Who or what is causing this jealousy? 

You will probably come to the conclusion that the jealousy is irrational and that your negative feelings are the consequence of the irrational thoughts. Try to remember that thoughts are nothing more than thoughts. They come and they go. When you realize this, you can just let your feelings be what they are. After some time you will notice that the jealousy and the negative thoughts disappear on its own. They will make room for more positive, helping thoughts. 

Action

When you find yourself worrying about the situation, you take a chance turning your feelings into jealous actions. One thing you should do to avoid this, is coming in action! You can try to distract yourself with relaxation exercises or do something that brings you joy, like jogging, preparing a healthy meal or meeting up with friends. You will probably see that the jealousy decreases.

Talk about it

There is always a possibility that feelings of jealousy don not disappear, but what may help is to share your feelings with your partner. Make sure that you always talk from an “I-statement” like: ‘I become jealous when I see you are having fun with other women/men. I do not want to forbid you anything, but maybe you could involve me in the conversation the next time?’ You can also say that you find it quite hard to confess your jealousy like ‘I am jealous and I find it hard to say that I am.’ 

Stop comparing yourself to others

Imagine your partner talking to another woman or man, and imagine you become jealous of it. This is mainly due to the fact that we tend to compare ourselves to others. We pay attention to the success, the beauty and the kindness of others. While on the other hand, we only pay attention to our own flaws and shortcomings. This results in an increase of our insecurities and fears.

What we should do, is look at our capabilities and qualities instead of our flaws, and pay attention to the traits and qualities we do have. What makes you unique and special? Take some time to think this through and write it down in your NiceDay diary!

And remember: the things you might not like about yourself, are the things others can appreciate most.

It is November already, which means that it has been 6 months since my treatment with NiceDay has ended. How am I doing 6 months later? I’ll explain it in this blog.

First of all, I am happy to say that I am doing well! During my treatment at NiceDay I realized that just after my coming out, my life had been a roller coaster. I had to made a big decision really quick: am I doing a 10 month internship in a country where gays are not accepted or shouldn’t I do that? I also got into a relationship fairly quickly. After this relationship broke down, I started thinking. This in combination with the fact that my grandfather was in very poor health, I lost one of my best friends in a motorcycle accident during my treatment at NiceDay and I  had to buy a house as well. During this period I went too fast for myself. I felt weak, restless, hot-tempered, sad and I was often unreasonable towards my family.

All these bumps are things that many people experience in their lives. If these bumps come one by one, you often can get through it independently. But all together at once, it became too much for me and I decided to go to NiceDay for help. My dear coach Sarah has listened to my story a lot and gave tips and hints on how to deal with my situation.

I mainly found out that after my coming-out, I was unable to process my “being gay”. Thanks to Sarah, I also found that writing things down greatly helps me to express my heart. I still use writing as an outlet, in which I can express many feelings and sometimes with a tear. About the latter: no, it really is okay to cry once!

I am also very happy that I can share my story on the NiceDay blog, so I can inspire other people and especially help them with my story. Personally, I don’t think I’m the only guy in a similar situation.

Of course, like everyone else, I have a day or an evening when I feel down. But now these moments often have a logical cause and not, as for my treatment, without an apparent reason for myself. Now, I give my life an 8! Especially after the move to my first home!

Hug,

Bert

I: “Hey, long time no see! How are you?”

Everyone in the world who has the idea that being busy is essential to a lifeworth will answer: “Yes, good. Busy! You?”

I: “Yes, the same. Busy busy.”

Because the above conversation occurred about twenty times a day, I decided not to give this answer anymore. Out of principle. It is a bit strange we are “so busy” and complain about to little time, but consistently overbook our schedules. 

Social acceleration

Philosopher Harmut Rosa explains this as a problem of the modern capitalist system, in which continuous growth is a necessity. According to Rosa, this economic trend has led to social acceleration (think of multitasking, international commuting and eating on the go). This phenomenon can lead to stress and disconnection with yourself.

A stop train or a fast train life?

Due to the speed of our society, you can get the feeling that there is no other way than to get on the same train of 200 km per hour. However, you are the machinist. You can decide for yourself whether you drive a stop train or an fast train. The problem of a too busy life can be solved. Ironically, this only takes a little time.

Running from A to B  every day

As an project manager I learned to plan my projects efficiently, because time is valuable. I noticed that this also applied to my own life: a Monday full of meetings, Tuesday driving to city X, Y and Z and a big presentation on Wednesday (which, of course, was finished until late tuesday). I also want to do sports, see my friends and family, clean the house and gain new skills. All tasks piled up and it became one big mush of to-do’s. I had to plan my personal time more efficiently, to have more time to enjoy.

Tools to be less busy

Below you will find some tools that helped me to cope with the pressure of today’s society. And they helped me to find my own happiness again. My tips for the coming week:

#the body is a machine

The most important factor of a stable foundation is consciously dealing with your body. Your body is a machine that needs to be maintained with care: sleep enough, go to bed on time and eat healthy. If you are physically in top form, it is easier to build a bridge to mental top condition.

#filter

 Be aware of your thoughts and believes. You can rush yourself by constantly thinking about how much you still have to do, how busy your week is and how stressed you feel. By also saying this, you tell your body and mind that something is wrong. You ask your body for a response: survival mode.

By choosing your thoughts and believes more carefully, you can prevent yourself from falling into an apathetic state where you get nothing done. 

Instead, look for the highlights  in the week. Embrace fine thoughts and say them out lot. In this way you also influence your environment positively!

#give yourself some space

If you have a lot to do you sometimes forget the most important thing: planning time for the most important person in your life, yourself. Choose a moment in the week where you make time for yourself. For example, I always keep my Wednesdays free after work. If someone asks to make an appointment, my answer is: “No, I need time for myself.”

This is a moment to look forward to. You can read a book, cook extensively or start a new hobby. Come up with something that will make you happy!

Important: Netflix, Whatsapp and Instagram do not count as a means to connect with yourself.

#make a plan

If you have set your moment for the coming week, focus on scheduling other obligations. Take half an hour and write everything you have to do. Then categorize this by priority: to be done within 1 day, within 1 week and later in the month.

Be honest! Do you really have to clean your house and do groceries and get a dress for that party today? Or can you move one of those tasks to another time in the week?

#think ahead

Go through your calendar at the beginning of the week to make sure it gets into your system. This gives you peace. Double check appointment locations. Find out if you can combine some things to spend your time efficiently. First deliver the mail, then refuel the car, then do the shopping. Or first start the washing machine, put the chicken in the oven and then process your email.

Focus

It goes without saying that every week is different and every person functions in his own way. But in the essence it is to focus on life, rather than being lived.

This is also described by the world’s first bartender Jerry Thomas:

“Stress is not caused by your busy life or challenging circumstances, it’s simply the result of an imbalance between silence and activity.”

If you know how to create balance in your daily life, you can pay attention to things that really make you happy. Have a nice life!

Letting go. It remains a returning theme in my life. Every time I believe I have let go of the old, it turns out I did not. A piece of the ‘old’ always stays. And that piece is so crucial to be a free person. The closer I get to the core, the more I block. I am almost there, but it is precisely the part that is the most difficult and painful.

Control

Sometimes I have the idea that when I let go of that piece, I will let go a part of myself. As if that part of me is not good enough and has to go. It feels very contradictory, because it confirms that I am not good enough. But on the other hand, the piece is so stressful and painful I have to let it go. Do you still get it?

I can philosophize about this for hours and that is precisely the problem. It won’t get me any further. Several times a week I am overwhelmed by the urge to just sit and scream, cry or whatever it takes to free myself from misery. In my imagination that looks very normal and relieving. But in reality it doesn’t happen. I stiffen. I am afraid to lose control and afraid to really feel. I’m afraid of what may come.

Habit

The fear of losing control is a strong pattern in my system. But more and more I find out that sometimes you have to let go of control to free yourself. By holding onto something, I make it unnecessarily difficult. I believe that control and habit are close together. On the one hand because control can be a habit and on the other because both this are difficult to break. Control is a part of me and I would not want to swap it for anything else. But every now and then I want to let go of myself a little more, because wanting to control keeps me trapped.

Changing is scary. You make a transition from the known to the unknown. It makes us uncomfortable. Yet it is sometimes necessary to step into something uncomfortable in order to let go. In the long term it will certainly pay off. But it will take some time.

“Let it go, turn away and slam the door”

When I think of letting go, I think of Frozen. And when I think of Frozen, I think of Princess Elsa who sings “Let it go” on top of the snowy mountain. She sings about a ballast, which she carried with her. At some point the tension got so high she had to let it go, even she found it very scary. In retrospect it was her liberation. If we, including myself, find the courage to experiment with letting go, perhaps we will see it is not so bad. But maybe it will be bad and we just have to go through it. By doing it and experiencing it, we are always getting a bit closer to the goal: letting go.

Let go: for the sake of ourselves.

Love,

Ghyta

We humans are creatures of habit. Over time we gather more and more people, things and places, as well as thoughts, behavior and emotions, to which we attach ourselves. But how often do you actually ask yourself the following question; “do I hold onto something that is not helping me?”

It may sound like a crazy question, because why would you bed attached to something that is of no use to you? It’s because it does give us something, especially in the short term.

Everything we do, we do for a reason

We do what we do because it gives us something positive, or because we can avoid something negative with it. So also holding on to negative ideas and beliefs or emotions such as anger or sadness. This does not seem logical when we think of the bigger picture or when we consider what we want to achieve. But in the short term, it certainly means something to us.

For example, grief can immediately call for compassion and support from others. Or anger justifies the belief that “you are right.” Always saying yes gives you appreciation of others. And by staying at your boring job, you don’t have to think about your future.

The pitfall

In those short-term rewards it is precisely where the pitfall lies. The short-term rewards feel comfortable and  safe. It takes courage to let go, because it opens the door to the unknown. And that is almost always scary. However, holding on to the things that we do not need, can stagnate our development and sometimes our well-being.

“When I let go of who I am, I become who I could be. When I let go of what I have, I get what I need. “~ Tao Te Ching

Three questions

How do you let go of the things that are not helpful for you? Like with almost everything, this starts with awareness. After all, you can only change something when you have the insight. The following three questions can help you:

• To which thoughts / habits / feelings do I feel attached even though they are not helpful?
• Which short-term rewards do these things give me? (what do I get out of it / what do I avoid with it?)
• What would my life look like if you let go of these things?

NiceDay app

Are you connected to a NiceDay professional? Write the answers to this questions in your diary in the NiceDay app so that you can find ways to let go of the unuseful things.

We all want to be special, because being ‘normal’ is boring. Yet there is profit to be gained in just being ordinary. In the book ‘The courage to be disliked; How to free yourself, change your life and achieve real happiness (2019), published by Allen & Unwin, Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga offer tools for developing courage to change without focusing on what others think about you. In addition, they discuss how to move past barriers that prevent us from being truly happy.

What is wrong with being “special”?

In principle there is nothing wrong with being ‘special’, but striving for perfection (the very best version of yourself) can cause you to strive for an unattainable goal. If we do not achieve this goal, the desire to be a better version of yourself will turn to the idea that you have failed. This in turn ensures that you feel unhappy.

Being normal and happy: how do you do that?

Self-acceptance is an important first step. If you manage to have the courage not to be special, your view of the world will immediately change. Nothing else needs to be done and a burden falls off your shoulders. You are no longer busy making continuous improvements to yourself, looking for the next mountain to climb, no you can just be. Sometimes something does not work out as you had previously thought or you will find that you are not good at something. And that is fine: You can’t do more than your best and that’s enough!

Your look at life

Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga also state that, to be ordinary and happy, you need a different view on life. We have learned that life is a line, you live from goal to goal until the moment of departure, death. We are constantly on the move in this image.

But, life is not a line, it is a collection of moments in the here and now. Future and past do not exist. If our life were a line then life planning is a good option. You don’t have to keep giving direction to a collection of moments. There will always be unexpected circumstances, planning is not always helpful.

All you have to do is live your life moment by moment. Happiness is then not the result of a goal achieved, but the by product of being allowed to here.

Do you have the courage to just be?

Emotions are very important. It gives us insight into our needs and limits, but it also gives us insight to the needs and limits of others. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the capacity to understand, manage and effectively express your own feelings, but also the ability to deal with someone else’s feelings. A reduced EQ is associated with interpersonal problems and difficulty coping with stress. It is also related to various mental problems such as depression, addiction and borderline. On the other hand, an improved EQ is associated with getting better grades at school, strong relationships with others and more satisfaction in life. You can subdivide EQ into five components:

• Self-awareness: knowing what we feel and why we feel that way.
• Self-regulation: being able to express our feelings in the correct way.
• Motivation: the internal endeavour to change how we feel and express ourselves.
• Empathy: being able to empathise with someone else’s emotions and seeing the world from their perspective.
• Social skills: being able to communicate effectively and build a good relationship with others.

Train your emotional intelligence

Intelligence is partly genetically determined, but it is not all about genetics! Just like your IQ, you can also train your emotional intelligence. You can do this in different ways.

Awareness and recognition of emotions

During the day, keep track of which positive and negative emotions you have felt, how strong you felt them and why you felt them. Also notice when someone else has certain emotions and whether you can recognize them. You can even give this feedback to someone else. It can be very nice to acknowledge someone’s feelings. Saying “I see you are feeling sad …” or “I notice that you are angry.” can mean a lot to someone!

Listen, acknowledge and act on emotions

Emotions are a signal. For example, there may be a need for change because you are not comfortable with something. Many people find it difficult to express frustrations, for example. If you do not do this, it often means that borders are being crossed. Getting angry and expressing it is a way to respond to the situation, but in this way you are crossing the boundaries of someone else. Try to practice dealing with a situation assertively! This gives a lot of satisfaction.

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes

We often think and act from our own perspective, because that is what we know. But can you also view situations from the perspective of someone else? Would someone else have different needs and interests in a certain situation? And have different feelings than you? Every now and then take the time to think about what it would be like if you were in someone else’s shoes. Maybe you have a friend who needs help, but is not asking for help which makes you angry. Your friend on the other hand might feel terribly burdened to ask you for help. This means that in a situation people can have different emotions and thoughts!

NiceDay app

Good luck with training your emotional intelligence! In the NiceDay app, keep track of your emotions during the day and describe why you felt them. Plan an assertiveness exercise and reflect on this or think about someone else’s experience and describe this in a diary registration!