Is being happy all the time realistic?

We want to feel happy, we want the people around us to feel happy, we want our children to be happy. But what if this is in fact making us unhappy!

The pressure to be happy can be stressful. It is unrealistic to think we can be happy all the time.  We have so many emotions and all of these emotions are ok.  It is so important to model and allow ourselves, each other and especially our children to feel each of these emotions. Whether it be sad, angry, frustrated, jealous, disappointed, happy.

Maybe our job as parents is not to try and stop our children feeling emotions but support them through these emotions and help them realise they are normal and that each of these emotions has a beginning, middle and an end. Once we start to accept feelings, they may not seem so scary.

Often the more we fight being sad or angry, the more intense that emotion becomes.

Maybe our goal as a parent or friend is to support a person's well being, what ever they may be for each person.  There is no point striving for happiness, if we do not even know what makes us happy!

The first step is to identify what helps us feel content in our own skin and try and work towards doing these things that do in fact make us feel good.