The search for happiness seems to be the perennial search we are engaged in. Society tells us repeatedly that happiness is transactional. We can buy it, achieve it, work towards it. From this perspective, happiness often feels commodified. Where we are told that we are just one click away from obtaining it!
However, this process of "buying" happiness bypasses an existential dichotomy; which is that our longings for happiness are continually in opposition to the limitations of what it means to be human. In this sense, we all have to come to terms with the inherent instability of being alive. That what we hold onto, will eventually be taken from us.
Psychotherapy, in this sense doesn’t promote the goal as being one of gaining happiness, but rather to embrace meaning instead. It is true, that we will experience moments of happiness. However, they are only moments and cannot be willed into existence or purchased.
So, what does it mean to embrace meaning in our lives? As a therapist, I have seen in working with clients, how the pursuit of happiness is often in reaction to, as well a denial of these existential truth’s. In this sense, part of us already knows and understands what is already true in ourselves. We can see the instability and uncertainty of life. The issue then becomes, how to live a meaningful life from this truth. However, this is something that many of us are ill equipped for. The subsequent pursuit of happiness, then becomes its own form of purgatory, as the anxiety and pressure to find an escape, through this continued seeking, creates its own unhappiness and disconnection.
As such, living a life that gives a place to meaning, invites us to give a place to suffering. Recognising that part of being alive is to suffer - We get what we don’t want and don’t get what we do want. Or, in finally getting what we do want, it’s then taken from us. Suffering invites us to begin asking deeper questions of ourselves. As it is often the case, that we don’t begin to make this enquiry of ourselves until we are in pain. Suffering, in this sense, can therefore be seen as an important gateway towards our own healing.
The purpose of psychotherapy is then, not to remove suffering, but to move through it, towards an experience of ourselves that is capable of holding these polarities of truth. It is often seen then, that the places, which we have spent so long avoiding bring a deeper, more meaningful experience of the world and subsequently, a place of healing that allows a more authentic experience of ourselves.