In order to be in harmony, a person needs to follow only three rules: constantly desire something, regularly communicate with someone and tirelessly search for the meaning of life. It seems simple. Then why, according to VTsIOM, only 37% of Russians called themselves happy? Because happiness is not a feeling that is given to us by nature. Psychologists have come to the conclusion that this is more of a skill that a person is able to activate in himself on his own. Psychologically, it is much easier to harbor fear, anxiety and other antipodes of joy. We will try to clearly explain why it is important to be happy every day. And we’ll tell you in detail what pleasure is made of. What is happiness? It's a deep feeling of satisfaction. Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that it consists of our desires. Leading psychologist of the Tyumen regional center “Family” Ksenia Mazitova is sure that happiness is a more long-term feeling than joy, for example, and is not as easily realized as the feeling of pleasure that can be obtained from contact with something pleasant from the outside world.” Let us quote here the heroine of the work “Woe from Wit” - Sophia, who accurately noted: “Happy people do not watch the clock.” In fact, this is so, this is a permanent state that must necessarily be present in a person’s life; it cannot be forbidden to oneself or put off until later,” the expert emphasizes. Why can’t one refuse it and create surrogates? In the brain there is a “center of positive emotions and pleasure" - limbic system. It, like others, must be nourished from the outside for normal and healthy functioning. If you prohibit the pleasure center from receiving what it is supposed to, it, roughly speaking, realizes it differently - the person becomes neurotic or, conversely, turns into an apathetic personality. When you, through an effort of will, ban yourself from happiness, you create a false state of grief. “An artificial stay in mourning and grief is addictive, psychologically it is very difficult, to be in such a state when you forcibly ban yourself from happiness, and at the same time in real In life, nothing tragic happens to you personally. First of all, restraining positive sensations and feelings will affect physical health, somatic problems will appear in the form of decreased immunity, chronic diseases may worsen, and so on. For everyone, the consequences will be individual, for some more, for others less, starting, for example , from an unpleasant twitching of the eye and ending with depression,” says Ksenia Mazitova. Why is such depression caused by “artificial” grief terrible? When a sad event occurs in a person’s life, then this story always has a beginning and an end, as well as several stages of experiencing the unpleasant episode. After the individual goes through the “shock” stage, he moves to the stage of acceptance, psychologically the person begins to let go: the usual way of life stabilizes, sleep normalizes, tension in the body goes away, and so on. With a protracted disorder into which the person has driven himself, no successive stages, he simply wastes resources, feels complete apathy and cannot break out of this state. As a rule, people complain of chronic fatigue, do not want anything, and lose the meaning of tomorrow. In the pursuit of happiness, one could take the path of avoidance (isolation) - voluntary loneliness. Some scientists even agree that by cutting yourself off from suffering from the outside world, you can achieve a state of peace. But practicing psychologist Ksenia Mazitova insists that a person is a social person. Psychoanalyst Alfred Adler, who studied happiness and self-realization, came to the conclusion that such a property as mass character is clearly expressed in a person. Therefore, trying to create a surrogate for happiness is not a substitute for contact with a real person. For example, our faithful life companions dogs, cats andother animals will not be able to satisfy our need for communication in the same way as a truly close person will. This does not mean that they do not make us happy, animals give joy, but they should not be a substitute for love relationships, for example. These are worlds that should exist in parallel, and not replace each other. “Scheme of Happiness”: where to start and how to apply it Let us recall that satisfaction, according to psychologist Ksenia Mazitova, rests on three pillars: desire, fulfillment and the meaning of life. She formed her scheme of happiness, taking as a basis the conclusions reached by psychoanalysts: Alfred Adler, Sigmund Freud and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. They believed that the starting points in the “scheme of happiness” are our spiritual needs - desires. First stage. Desire The psychologist recommends starting with satisfying personal desires. But in their search, it is forbidden to translate the dream into a practical form: “I will not buy myself a decoration that I really want, but I will buy myself a saucepan, because it will be more useful.” You also cannot infringe on personal needs, trying to make others happy: “I don’t care.” and there’s no need - I already have everything.” Ksenia Mazitova insists that joy can only be achieved if the quality of life changes: “You need to satisfy your own desires regularly. We are not talking about constant, expensive purchases. Here you need to ''talk'' with your inner ''I'' and ask it: ''Do you want this: so what? For what?'' The answer will make it clear how important this desire is, whether it can nourish the center of pleasure. You can visualize your internal needs, write them on a piece of paper - this will allow you to look at them from the outside." In searching for desires, the psychologist recommends training in the technique of constant choice. For example, come to the store and ask yourself several times: “I definitely want this evening fish or meat?”, that is, you do not make a decision automatically or out of habit, but as if you are slowing yourself down before an action where you previously did not even give yourself the right to think: “Create situations of choice and do it.” Ultimately, this will teach you to form true - personal desires. Second stage. Relationships Once you have learned or remembered that you need to regularly receive pleasure from the outside world, you can move on to creating a deeper state of happiness. Freud's student Alfred Adler came to the following conclusion: “In order to achieve success (happiness in self-realization), you need to make your inferiority complex work for yourself.” “For this, human relationships are very important to us. It will hardly be possible to realize your desire without communicating in any way with other people. We need viewers, we need to care about someone, to show up in someone. To do this, you will need to learn how to build warm friendships. Get rid of the feeling of loneliness in the crowd. The last ones to sin now are bloggers who, having many friends on the Internet, do not know who to invite for a cup of coffee or with whom to go to the cinema out of a million subscribers,” says Ksenia Mazitova. The position: “I’m not against communication, but no one comes” will not work here. The psychologist recommends asking yourself honestly: “So, someone should come, or find you, or love you? Are you just going to sit and wait? Building relationships is a separate topic for conversation, because it is necessary to take into account the individual characteristics of a person, because some people feel comfortable in the company of two people, while others need a larger community. From these personal preferences, it is necessary to create various forms of communications, be it big party or online dating. The main thing is to translate quantity into quality, not to go underground, but to build communication with others. Third stage. The meaning of life In the search for the meaning of life, Ksenia Mazitova recommends paying attention to the logotherapy of Viktor Frankl, a humanistic psychologist who discovered the idea of ​​the meaning of life while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. The approach to finding your purpose is based on seven principles: 20-40-70.