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One of the stories I share often with my clients is in understanding what is known as the secondary emotion called happiness. A few months ago, I was driving in the North West part of Calgary Alberta, on Stony Trail listening to my tunes and practicing my sweet singing voice to whoever I was listening to at the time. In that moment I was relaxed, pretty sure I wasn’t speeding, and having a great drive home. Needless to say, in that moment I was “HAPPY.” All of a sudden, this car comes speeding beside me and whips into my lane and almost cuts me off at the same time forcing me to pull into the other lane so the car wouldn’t hit me. Thankfully no other vehicle was on the road, or beside me. At that moment I very quickly lost my happiness and I can also neither confirm nor deny a few choice words came out of my mouth at that moment being projected towards the driver now in front of me.

Happiness is something many people in our society strive and desire to have in their life. The challenge however is that since happiness is a secondary emotion, it tends to come and go as it pleases. One moment your happy and the next it’s long gone and all your left with is whatever is at the core of your being in that moment.

In the case of my driving experience, I was left dealing with primary emotions of surprise (of the drivers’ impulsive actions), fear (of getting sideswiped) and anger (at the driver and the reckless choices made in the moment). All these primary emotions are never a great combo in a crisis situation.

So, what do you do in these moments when happiness suddenly disappears? Well, I faced and confronted my emotions in the moment. Once I felt safe and secure while driving, I started to say out loud how I was feeling. I told myself how surprised I was to see the driver go into my lane suddenly, how fearful I was at almost getting hit and how angry I was at the driver. Once I did that, I started to pull on another primary emotion that can sometimes take time to cultivate if you have never developed it or experienced it, and that was the primary emotion called JOY.

You see, Joy does not so easily float away like happiness does. As a primary emotion it’s important to know that JOY is biologically wired within ourselves and if we can tap into it during crisis or a really bad moment in time, our JOY can be like a peace that passes understanding. Bad stuff can be happening all around, however, by cultivating Joy in our lives, when tough times hit our lives we can then draw on the strength of Joy and then allow other great secondary emotions such as happiness to come around again and enjoy life once again…..and to again practice singing to my sweet tunes, which I began to do about 7 minutes later once I had calmed down, worked out my primary emotions and allowed Joy to rise up in my life.

If you are finding happiness difficult to maintain or it just keeps disappearing then it might be time to find a qualified counselling therapist or psychotherapist that can help support you in cultivating the primary emotion of joy and New Life.