“I do not experience joy in life. What to do? - this question often sounds in the office of a psychologist. How to build your life to be happy? Why does joy leave life and how to return it? We asked professional psychologists about this.

Shabshin Ilya Iosifovich

Individual and family counseling, working with adults

One is mine former client- 25 year old programmer, learned two foreign languages, independently mastered playing the guitar, his photos collected hundreds of “likes” and so on - and he did not enjoy life, because he considered himself miserable and inferior due to the fact that he did not have close relationships (“but they should”). This is how his system of beliefs was arranged, that everything wonderful was devalued to zero, and inconsistency with the stereotype “like everyone else” in one parameter was elevated to an absolute. It is clear that neither this multi-talented man himself was "wretched", nor his life was "worthless"; the problem was created by the way he once chose to relate to himself (learned from his father).

We often forget that, with the exception of disturbances in the biochemistry of the brain, our judgments about life in general, our assessments of specific situations and events are not at all self-evident and objective, but are the product of our beliefs, attitudes, preferences, experiences, character traits, etc. .d. It is in this psychological reality that one must look for the reasons for the lack of joy.

Although any client comes to a psychologist with the question “What to do?” But in order to do what is needed, it is necessary to correctly understand and understand exactly what is happening and why. In counseling experience, I would first consider three such options: (1) the person stopped feeling the joy of life after some specific event; (2) the feeling of joy from life faded away gradually; (3) life in general passes bleakly. Accordingly, the working hypotheses would be a reaction to trauma or loss, a discrepancy between reality and existing expectations (requirements) from oneself, loved ones, distant ones, life in general, as well as a life scenario (an early childhood decision) that prescribes to live in a state of sadness and/or anxiety in this imperfect world.

The good news is that any of these options can work successfully. Less good is that the change may require serious effort, quite a long work. But the goal - finding YOUR joy in life, is definitely worth it!

Safyan Nadezhda Vladimirovna

Certified gestalt consultant, psychologist, business coach

What can be done to actualize the joyful state?

• Find out what brings you joy. This is very important step. All people are different, have different needs and desires, and enjoy different things. Someone rejoices that he got enough sleep and spent at home in peace and quiet, someone rejoices at meeting friends and a noisy party. You can make a personal list of 100 “little joys”, including different options, such as “outdoor recreation”, “a delicious dinner with a loved one”, “rolling down a hill”, “reading an interesting book”, “massage”, etc. .
• To realize in what state I am at the moment, what I want most of all right now. What do you want most now: a relaxed secluded holiday, meeting with loved ones, new experiences, inclusion in a new professional activity, and maybe physical activity? What needs of mine have been in the shadows for a long time and have not been realized? Maybe now is the time to pay special attention to them.
• Choose an activity option that brings joy from a personal list in accordance with the current state. Joy will be most complete if it corresponds to your current state.
• Go to actions. At this stage, you should organize your time and activities in such a way that you enjoy the joy to the fullest. Try to eliminate all obstacles that prevent enjoyment. For example, you should not organize an evening of solitude with a loved one in a state of haste and lack of time.
• Enjoy the process and open up to joy to the fullest.
• Thank yourself for the path you have traveled and for the joy you have experienced.. And maybe you want to please yourself more often, which in itself brings joy.

If this path seemed difficult to implement, another option is also possible - a deeper one. Maybe events occur in life and the state of sadness, irritation, despair - have become so familiar that there is a feeling that joy simply has no place in your life.

In this case, you should deal with what causes sadness, irritation and despair - with what events and facts it is connected. Maybe it's time to look at life from the position of the Author of life, and explore what you want to change in your life in order to make room for joy. This is a longer path ... from understanding what I want to change to real changes and a new sense of myself ... along this path there are sadness, and disappointment, and resentment, and fears ... however, when you start moving along it, you can already be happy for yourself, for the fact that you found the strength to change your life and listen to yourself, for the fact that you have every opportunity to live your life exactly the way you want.

We are often pleased with loved ones and those around us, but it is also very important to understand that, first of all, we ourselves can please ourselves, and it is inside us that we have everything in order to live this life, opening up to joy, regardless of external circumstances and others. of people.

Pokrovskaya Svetlana Ivanovna

Psychologist, certified specialist in systemic constellations, I work with adults both individually and in a group

The rhythm of life, a large flow of information, time pressure, high requirements for professional level, the diversity of activities, constant striving for achievements, power, the availability of money, status, etc. lead a person to constant stress and, in extreme cases, to exhaustion of the body, depression. Increasingly, clients come to me for career counseling with a similar request - “no desire to work, be active, no pleasure and joy, a feeling of powerlessness, no energy.” Seeking help from professionals - psychologists, coaches, psychotherapists, of course, will help you to approach this issue systematically - to find and work out factors that interfere with you personally (the reasons can be very different), find hidden resources and build your interaction with life circumstances optimally and constructively according to your goals.

What can you do yourself? How not to bring yourself to complete exhaustion or get out of such a state, if this has already happened?

Try to establish a balance of work and rest, sleep, physical and mental activity.

It is important to respect the boundaries: about work at work, personal relationships and communication with friends separately, set aside time during the day only for yourself (20-30 minutes of silence in a quiet place alone with yourself, in nature, in a park will allow you to feel better, to be aware of your integrity and being in the world).

Mobile sports activities, breathing exercises, the use of self-regulation methods (autogenic training, autohypnosis, muscle relaxation, bodily and respiratory therapy, meditation, etc.)

It is important to connect with other people, maintain relationships, receive emotional support, confidential discussion of issues related to stress at work allows you to reduce tension, anxiety and other worries.

An excellent resource and support is a connection with nature, art, God, an appeal to creativity in any form.

Stop rule! Self-control of one’s emotional state is a psychological “diet” of receiving negative information through all possible channels (media, personal environment), it is necessary to reassess judgments (beliefs), focus less on the negative aspects of events and actions of others, remain optimistic and positive.

Changes and changes help: change the type of activity, change the place of work, or find the strength to grow in position.

Find new meanings in current activities, bring a creative look at the work performed (this is absolutely possible in any profession).

Ameyally (Oksanen) Ekaterina Olegovna

clinical (medical) psychologist, counseling psychologist, family psychologist

There are times when a very unpleasant feeling arises: everything seems to be the same, but it seems as if life has lost its meaning. Previously, there was something in work / family / hobbies, but now it’s like all the colors have faded. At such moments, the brain seems to apply an emergency brake: you don’t want anything, your feelings are “frozen”, and all your thoughts are only about why you should get up in the morning at all, trudge somewhere and do something.

Here a man lived for himself, did not interfere with anyone. He thought that happiness and harmony would come when, for example, he earns money and reaches a certain status. Or maybe he wanted family and friends. And he honestly strived for these goals: he received the right education, bought a lot of necessary and unnecessary things, found a job, started a family and friends. And suddenly this outwardly successful man falls into despondency: it seems that all this is not it. Just yesterday it was “that”, and today what he has been striving for for so long is becoming unnecessary, boring and even annoying. The saddest thing is that it is very difficult to find someone who can understand and support. From the outside, everything seems to be fine. Even more than that: nothing in life has formally changed, it seems like there is nothing to grieve about, and it is not possible to formulate an answer to the question “what happened”. Nothing happened. That's the trouble. Something important, the most important, has gone from life, and what it was is a mystery.

The loss of meaning is an extremely difficult experience, a real grief. But for some reason it is not customary to talk about it. As I already wrote, grief is often considered only a physical loss. That is, in order for society to give the “right” to worry, you need to lose something that is visible to the naked eye: a loved one, work, home, family. And for our psyche, the loss of meaning is no easier to experience.

A person who has lost meaning quickly falls into depression. His soul is captured by vague feelings of apathy, loss of interest in life, impotence and hopelessness. He becomes lethargic, weak, inactive. During these periods, a person is extremely vulnerable in every sense of the word. violated the usual way think and make decisions, and during this period you can commit rash and impulsive acts, even harm yourself or others. The loss of meaning injures not only the psyche, but also the body: suddenly a person can get sick. Moreover, the disease most often occurs abruptly and strongly, and the nature of the disease can be very unusual.

It turns out that the loss of meaning is an experience so difficult that it strikes at once on all fronts. And somewhere in our hearts we all know how scary it is. Needless to say, an absolutely natural reaction is to run as far as possible so as not to come into contact with questions of meaning. The only problem is that they will catch up. It is impossible to “shut up” a loss - you can “postpone” it by occupying your soul with something else for a while. But the loss is not going anywhere. She will come out with renewed vigor, so much so that it will not seem a little.

Surely you have seen examples of people who managed to temporarily contain the intensity of their inner passions, plunging headlong into violent activity. Women often do this through family and children, men are more likely to go to work. These people just say: “I live for him / children”, “at work I feel alive”. And it seems like everything is as it should be, but ... it turns out that they equate the meaning of their whole life with one sphere. That is, they make a "bet" on one thing. And what will happen if the children of such a woman grow up and become independent (well, or the partner leaves), and a man at the age of forty discovers that his achievements are not enough? Will break them. in half.

Everything is logical: if you put an "equal" sign between the meaning own life and some one idea, then this idea becomes the most valuable in the world. If suddenly the idea collapses, there will be no person. This is the instinct of self-preservation and makes you make any sacrifices, just to save it. And then we get women who endure humiliation; mothers who do not allow their children to grow up and start their own family (or require grandchildren); men who drink too much or have affairs with young girls. All this is an attempt to fill the inner void. Sometimes at the cost of other people's lives.

But such horrors occur when, firstly, we “bet” on one thing and, secondly, we do not “let go” one meaning in time to let another into our lives. That is, when we different ways we have been running away from this question for too long without communicating with ourselves. And the faster we run, the stronger it will cover. Because it accumulates. As the saying goes, “no matter how much rubbish you tamp down, you still have to take it out.” And the longer you save, the harder it will be to drag. Therefore, sometimes you need to survive a meeting with yourself.

Yes, it's very difficult to be in this. So difficult it's almost impossible. But if you are "there", then please remember:

Who said that meaning should be in one thing? Maybe the desire to live lies in balance: something for the mind, something for the soul, something for the body. Well, or so: for yourself, for friends, for family, for work. The inner emptiness becomes unbearable when these proportions are violated, when one sphere pulls the blanket over itself, making us forget about the existence of others.

The feeling of meaningfulness, wholeness and fullness of life is very individual and does not directly depend on external circumstances. Sometimes these feelings come when you sit within four walls, and sometimes on top of a mountain. There are people whose inner fire is “fed up” by achievements, but for some, these very successes are a direct road to depression. That is why it is so difficult to help someone who has lost his meaning: your recipe is unlikely to suit him, he has his own.

Meaning - floating, dynamic. He doesn't stay in one place for long. First, the desire to live arises from one thing, then it moves to another. If you suddenly ceased to feel it, this does not mean that "everything is decay." It's just an indicator that the meaning is moving. And that's okay. That's the way it should be.

You must first experience the loss, and only then will the process of searching for a new one become possible. Terrible things happen if we try to immediately occupy ourselves with another meaning without giving ourselves time to say goodbye to the previous one.
When the colors are gone, those are the moments when you need to delve into yourself. (By the way: when we think that we are afraid of loneliness, it is often not that there will be no one around that scares us, but that we will be left alone with ourselves. Then there will be nowhere to escape from questions of meaning ...).

Depression distorts reality. And she does it so deftly that it seems as if the world is like that - gray, dull, meaningless, dangerous. But she's lying. And you can’t do impulsive actions based on what she whispers.

Afitsinsky Alexey Mikhailovich

Psychologist, teacher of psychology.

The world around us is infinitely diverse, it all depends on how we see it, from what angle, for example, if a person has a negative attitude, he does not know how to see joy in elementary and seemingly ordinary trifles, then, accordingly, the world will seem cruel and gray, and the world, meanwhile, is not bad and not good - it is different, and the problem of the absence or presence of joy in life, sadness is a matter of our attitude, look (concentration), on certain manifestations ( sides), for example, a person turns on the TV, in the news feed, a number of events were covered, but from everything he pulled out not a positive story, but an episode about a train crash, yes, as a result, the negative accumulates, which ultimately leads to an erroneous picture peace. By the way, such people are easy "prey" of various kinds of totalitarian sects, where a person is controlled by manipulating the concept of "joy of life", depending on the concept of teaching. So how do you learn this joy of life? Well, it's obvious that changing the world is a romantic utopia, it's better to start changing yourself. Firstly, change your environment (people who pull not up, but down, if any), change (perhaps not completely), the situation in your apartment (it is known that colors have an effect on mood, self-awareness, a person is not the last role, for example, Red - the most exciting, Yellow - evokes sympathy and positive emotions, Green - soothes.

Titova Maria Yurievna

Certified psychotherapist. Person-centered method. Languages: Russian, German, English. I work individually with adults and children.

"I do not experience the joy of life" - unfortunately, a fairly common expression. What is behind these words? Each of the words of this phrase can reveal its own, unexpected aspects.

Let's start with "not" - denial. I don't do something. Something to do. Why should, who should? There is already a feeling of dissatisfaction in this "not", a feeling that something is wrong. Some depreciation?

Next comes the word "experience". To experience in this context is closer in meaning to the word "feel". I say: I don’t experience it, which means I think that I should experience it, but for some reason it doesn’t work and it upsets me. Question: how do I know what I should experience? Have you tried it before and now it doesn't work? Then it is worth stopping at the moment when you experienced it, remember how it was, and think, feel what has changed? Or "it is necessary to test", but I do not test. Then the answer lies in the fact that it cannot be "necessary" to experience. And if that's the question, then it's interesting to focus on what I'm experiencing. Carefully, slowly, take a closer look at your feelings. Feelings experienced in the present is the main key to all the mysteries of our Soul. Of course, it is better to look closely at the accompaniment of a professional who will help open access to hidden and "crushed" feelings.

The word "joy" - what kind of joy are we talking about? About the delight of the sunrise or the chickadees playing on the branch? Or the joy of good news, the joy of a gift? Or the joy that comes from within, from the very depths, when "the Soul trembles"? The answer to these questions is important, it allows you to understand in what plane the answer to the question "what to do" lies.

And finally, the word "life". This is the most meaningful word in the whole expression. What do I put into this word - "life", what do I want from "life", do I live my "life", do I live my full "life"? Which of these questions resonates with me, what do I want to answer, what do I want to talk about? Everyone will have their own answers. And the feelings that are associated with these answers, associations, memories that suddenly pop up "to the surface of consciousness." This is where the path to the answer to the question "What to do" begins.

Afanasyeva Olga Mikhailovna

practical psychologist. Additional education: NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis.

There is no joy in life when there is no sex. No matter how trite and perhaps too straightforward it may sound. Or - there is sex, but not with that or with the wrong one, or with the wrong ones, not so ... in general, something is wrong with sex, and therefore it does not bring pleasure or joy.

If there are sufficiently relevant life tasks, goals, for the achievement of which an erotic impulse is also needed, then some inconsistencies literally - in terms of sex, can be smoothed out, and even completely lose their relevance. Because they will fade into the background, become not very significant, etc.

But if literally - and with sex, and with life's tasks are big inconsistencies, then it's really bad. This is the main reason for the loss of joy in life.

In any case, the answer to the question: "What to do?" - look for both the cause and the solution precisely in these areas. It is most likely that the source of the problem is the loss of the joy of life, precisely in these areas.

In general, I want something very much, and when I get it, I do not feel any joy. Before, tears flowed from joy, but now it didn’t matter. Everything around seems meaningless.
My young man constantly confesses his love to me, but I Lately stopped reciprocating, because I don’t feel anything. This was not the case before. This has been going on for half a year now. What happened with me? Help me please.

Hello Alexandra! if you have now stopped experiencing emotions, then this may indicate that for some time you spent yourself too much - perhaps you took something too close to your heart, wasted yourself emotionally, and now a period of emotional exhaustion is coming when you simply cannot experience something, because there is no source that will replenish you. You also need to analyze the relationship, what happened in them, did you encounter any difficult experiences for yourself? When did this state begin, what was happening at that time? After all, this state has been going on for a year! But this is not a short period of time and something needs to be done already. The main thing is not to miss the state of true depression, and this is already something that needs to be corrected using a different path! You can't miss the situation!

Alexandra, if you really decide to figure out what is happening - feel free to contact me - I will be glad to help you.

Shenderova Elena. Moscow. You can work by phone, skype, watsapp.

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Alexandra, good afternoon.

You write that you do not experience joyful emotions and everything around seems meaningless for more than six months. You also mention that you used to shed tears of joy. Both that and another manifestation of feelings can be attributed to. However, this alone is not enough to claim that you have this problem. You have not written anything about your lifestyle, age, the type of relationship that you have developed and developed over the past few years with loved ones and those who are in your environment.

Based on this, it is impossible to clearly and clearly answer your question: What is happening to you?

I will try to explain my vision of this issue. The inability to experience joyful feelings is always associated with the containment and internal prohibition of some feelings and the subsequent natural loss of emotional sensitivity. Most often, people hold back anger or fear (anxiety), drive them so deep that they stop feeling them, but the retribution for this is the loss of other feelings - joy, surprise, interest, and so on. The result is depression.

Why do people treat their feelings this way? Most often because of the strong feelings of guilt or shame instilled in them since childhood for sincerely expressing their emotions, or because they value relationships with significant people so much that they ignore their desires and unwillingnesses in order to maintain these relationships.

I assume that you have developed an emotional disorder, most often it is depression and it has many faces. This is what the duration of your condition tells me. To endure such a state for more than six months is quite criminal in relation to oneself. Read among my articles and other emotional disorders. I didn’t write about all of them, but even this is enough to understand the direction.

If you feel the need, please contact us via Skype.

I wish you clarity of thoughts and feelings, harmony with yourself and mutual understanding with loved ones.

Biryukova Anastasia, Gestalt therapy in St. Petersburg and Skype around the world

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Everyone has long known that mood swings in pregnant women are normal. But at the same time, it is accepted in society that all pregnant women must certainly experience joy in anticipation of a baby. Unfortunately, women do not always feel emotional uplift during this period, and the pressure of public opinion, unfortunately, often leads to depression during pregnancy.

Children are lovely. They are adorable, perfect, sweet little balls of love. But let's be serious. As cute as they are, sometimes waiting for them to be born can be scary.

My work is related to pregnancy. As a midwife and newborn photographer, I have worked with many pregnant women as they prepare for childbirth and parenthood.

I recently met a couple who were preparing for the arrival of their first child into the world. We chatted about them family business when the expectant mother shared with me her joy that she could easily hide the pregnancy from outsiders. And almost like a belated excuse she forced herself to utter, she said, “You see, we could only enjoy joy together.”

Now, when I recall that conversation, having personal experience behind me, it seems to me that she uttered the word “joy” with some effort, even insincerely, as if she was required to say that her pregnancy gives her pleasure. I sympathized with her.

In our culture, pregnancy is considered a wonderful gift. And although it is permissible to complain about fatigue, nausea, morning dizziness and other minor troubles of pregnant women, the expectant mother simply has no right to experience anything but complete delight for her unborn child.

However, the truth is that often pregnancy is an extremely emotional period in the life of both a woman and the whole family, and sometimes these emotions can be extremely negative.

Even those parents who did not doubt that they wanted a child, after the onset of pregnancy, experience a strong emotional stress from which they cannot find a way out, and as a result they begin to be ashamed of their position. The mood of a woman in this case begins to change before her eyes and can lead to depression during pregnancy.

Last year I met a mother who was expecting her first child. When I asked how her pregnancy was going, she frankly shared with me that she was terribly afraid of becoming a mother. Although she planned this pregnancy, but the pregnancy occurred under the influence of the biological clock, and now the expectant mother was afraid that she would not be able to get along with her child because of the larger than usual age difference.

"This is the first time I've said it out loud...because it just sounds disgusting," she confessed, her appearance expressing shame. I wanted to hug her and hold her until the guilt was completely gone. But since this was our first meeting, I harnessed my compassion and instead of hugging her, I told her that her feelings were completely normal, that they were completely acceptable, and there was nothing to worry about. And almost immediately I noticed relief in her eyes. “No one ever told me that it was okay to feel like this.”

I base my personal experience. My husband and I got married less than a year after we met and just a few months after I graduated from medical school. We decided to have a baby right away, and I got pregnant a month after the wedding. I wanted a baby, didn't I? So I conscientiously feigned joy when I broke the news to my husband. We told my parents about the pregnancy in a very sweet way - we gave a signed children's book. Throughout the holiday, I felt sick and wanted to run away.

My entire pregnancy was permeated with the false joy necessary to conform to our culture's notions, even though inside I felt utterly overwhelmed.

I had to painfully get used to a new role, to become a housewife mother, because from a financial point of view it was the most optimal solution, although I always dreamed of a full-fledged career as a doctor. I tortured myself with remorse when one day I felt relieved that I was bleeding heavily, and I thought that a miscarriage might happen. I was terribly worried because I was afraid that I would not be able to find a common language with my son - because I so desperately wanted a daughter. Guilt washed over me with renewed vigor due to the disappointment and shame that I experienced after the ultrasound determined that I would have a boy. I left one of the parties before the birth in tears, because the feeling of guilt for not being happy with the unborn child was too strong and all-consuming.

I spent the next four years in depression, which escalated dramatically within a few months after the birth of my second child. There were other factors that influenced and intensified my depression, but, above all, this beast in me was awakened by the internal struggle, the non-recognition of my feelings as having the right to exist and the lack of support from society. In other words, in my case, depression during pregnancy turned into a serious problem after childbirth.

You are not alone.

It is important to remember that a bad mood or frequent mood swings in pregnant women can be the first signs of depression during pregnancy. I urge women and their relatives not to be shy about contacting specialists who provide professional psychological support for pregnant women.

Marianne, good afternoon.
What you write about causes a feeling of empathy for you. It’s not easy when you look at your life and see that there are failures, they repeat themselves, and most importantly, you don’t want something and the former doesn’t please you ..
You write that you do not have depression, but I think there is a depressive state. You are great for talking about your condition and experiences! This will be my first recommendation - to be with people. Chat, find new people. Yes, it will not be interesting to build contact with just anyone, but find people where you are most interested.
The second recommendation would be - doing what you love. A business that once brought pleasure or something new. Yes, there may not be a desire to do something, but .. it is more useful for you not to withdraw into yourself, but to go out into the world by all means.
The third recommendation may be a conversation with a specialist who will give his recommendations. It is one thing when we ourselves diagnose our condition with ourselves, another thing is when a living person, and even with knowledge.
I think you can start with these simple, understandable and even obvious recommendations, and then I suggest you think for yourself - which of these have you already tried? What was the result? What did you want to get using this or that recommendation? What prevented you from achieving this result?
It is important to keep the ability to set goals for yourself. However, there should also be time for rest and "doing nothing". And when you yourself understand that you want to do something - start your journey.
I once read an interesting recommendation, Marianne, on the Internet. "If you are bored, put a chair in the middle of the room, sit on it and do nothing. 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1.5 and you will be unbearably lazy."
Become the same again .. I think you can find such methods. But... is that really what you want, Marianne? After all, we are born anew every day waking up. We are not the same as yesterday. Yes, sometimes it is difficult for us to accept or recognize something new in ourselves. But then it is more useful for oneself, a new self - to study oneself, to know. Who are you now, Marianne? What are you? What are your desires right now, at this moment? What do you dream about in the long run? What is important to you?
Quite often I had to communicate in a working environment with clients who said: “I’m already old for this” or “at my age it’s no longer decent to have fun and be happy, and there’s nothing to do”, moreover, that both 30-year-olds and 50 year old..
Interestingly, the group where the average age of the participant was 65-70 years old was sometimes more active, interested in life, other people, themselves than the groups 35-40 years old.
Perhaps your body is really going through some kind of restructuring, like your consciousness, the perception of yourself ..
Get to know yourself, learn and develop yourself. Any age is good for this.
Good luck to you, Marianne, in your search and finding yourself.

“I don’t feel joy in life. What to do?" Modern Psychotherapy Approach to Depression and Joy

« I don't feel joy in my life. What to do?»

Modern psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and spirituality in the treatment of depression, depressive conditions and in matters of joy, happiness, in getting out of depressive dead ends

"Blessed and peaceful is he,
Who does not hope, who desires
Don't lend anymore.

Nothing to get, nothing to own.”
(Lalla (للء ایشوری) enlightened Kashmiri (1320-1392),
from the collection of poems "Nude Song")

“I don’t feel joy in life. What to do?" To do nothing. The paradox lies precisely in the fact that in order to “experience the joy of life” (in other words, “to be happy”), you don’t need to do anything special.

Moreover, it is usually due to the fact that a person did something in his life in order to be happy that he lost the taste of life (the joy of life).

In childhood, most people knew how to enjoy life. And is there anything specially done for this? I just lived the way I live and did what was done. Done creatively and without worries about tomorrow. The action itself was born from within, and the simple following of one's own interest, the interest of today (and not yesterday's and not tomorrow's), unfolded. Every day was lived like one life. And the next day there was already a different life (and you were already different and the day itself was no longer like yesterday). In childhood, everyone had this feeling of being happy "without doing anything." Let someone have it to the least degree, but it is intuitively clear to everyone, because the potential for this (to be happy just like that) is inherent in every living organism. If by nature it were not so, then the world would have disintegrated long ago, collapsed. Not for nothing wise people at all times it has been noticed that the world rests on love and self-natural harmony.

Therefore, it is naturally obvious that in order to return the joy of life, one must not do anything specifically, and not do anything in order to receive this joy.

In order not to chase after joy (to stop chasing), one must not associate its occurrence with something external. Joy should be within itself. Joy must be filled from within.

Why doesn't joy come from within itself now? It is obvious that the place of joy is occupied by something filled independently from the mind from outside. There are also so-called "injuries of pain born in relationships with parents", from which, at one age or another, a "trip in the fields of life" began to run away for happiness (an adult, often without realizing it, runs away from experiences that would have surfaced in the mind by themselves if a person had not been afraid to survive them). Early childhood experiences, being not experienced, again and again try to return to a person's life, to fit into consciousness, to integrate into personality. This is a phenomenon well known to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. “Unexperienced”, that is, not integrated and not understood (and therefore not integrated) can come (and will come) into a person’s life (however you don’t run away) in very different clothes: in the form of life failures, in the form of painful symptoms, in in the form of a specific choice of partners in relationships and otherwise.

If a person does not run away from anything in life, then joy is naturally born (or arises) from within. Joy is another name for happiness (wholeness, completeness, contentment, self-sufficiency and peace of mind).

And already out of joy (from fullness) one should perform or not perform certain actions, following the interest that comes by itself in the morning every day (but you never know which one in advance). Therefore, it is important not to determine for yourself what exactly to do (today and in life in general), but to let life decide for itself. Therefore, in order to be joyful (or happy), the importance of personal goals cannot be discussed. It is not a person who sets a goal and it is foolish to stick to the goal of yesterday (it disappeared with the sunset or with sleep).

Therefore, when it comes to the joy of life, then automatically we are talking about trust in life.Of course, the degree of trust in life is broken in most people and broken because of the relationship with parents in childhood. It is a fact.

Always at all times there were sages, healers, spiritual masters who showed how to treat life correctly so as not to suffer. Now there are specially trained people: psychologists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts - specialists in the study of the labyrinth of "their minotaur" [film "Minotaur's Labyrinth"]. We cannot talk about psychotherapists and psychologists who adhere to a medical directive approach, non-deep psychology, although they are useful at first for many who are not ready to go deep into themselves for real (with interest and understanding). They are useful (otherwise they would not exist) in that they accelerate the process of disappointment for personal purposes.

We are talking about those people who help in matters of returning trust to life, through the return of self-love in the form of self-acceptance (and not change). So the psychotherapist-psychoanalyst, through the acceptance of a person, solves the problem of non-acceptance by his parents. This takes an average of several years. Non-depth psychologists offer to do this faster. Non-depth psychology (and directive psychotherapy) is concerned with setting goals and achieving results. This is not the depth of the approach, since a person can learn to set "his" goals and achieve results, but this will not bring happiness into his life. Moreover, for many, this leads to even greater disappointment in life and (or) in themselves. These are dangerous (result-oriented) approaches that increase frustration and destroy self-image. The latter is generally beneficial, but comes at a disproportionate cost and often in an overly painful way, with consequences (especially if it is group training) as no antidote is provided (no deeper insights and knowledge of human nature are given). Such approaches and trainings are especially harmful for introverts.

Firstly, not everyone succeeds in achieving results, and secondly, (what is missed) is in no way connected with happiness and joy in the soul, but rather leads over time to disappointment in "ideas about the goal" and "ideas About Me". The method of setting goals and achieving results is a temporary illusion for people who have not played enough of the result and those who believe in the illusion that a person is the master of his life, that you can desire and get what you want if you do it right and set the right goals. It is not possible to receive fruits that give happiness in life through personal efforts. That is, efforts can be made and goals can be achieved (for those who are strong), but both the strong and the weak will not be happy from this. There are many confirmations of this from people who have everything (achieved by efforts), but there is no happiness, joy, lack of depression and a feeling of quenched emptiness.

There is not a single example of obtaining happiness from life through personal efforts. It is enough to come home to such a person to make sure, to check.

Happiness either comes by itself, or a person runs after it and eventually runs away from it even further.

What is the demand, so are the offers ... in the "world of managers" and business aimed at results. These tendencies have not bypassed psychology either. Of course, a real psychologist is not a businessman. Such a combination ("both a businessman and a psychologist") is theoretically possible, since everything happens in nature, but it is extremely rare. Because if a psychologist is focused on money or results, then he misses attunement with what is happening, with what is happening both in his life and in the life of his client (patient), attunement with the unconditional. The "force of what is happening" and its targets are taken from the unconscious and unfold in a way that is not predictable to the mind. Any interest in the result knocks down the settings.

Focusing on the result steals being in the present moment, in which the blossoming of the bud of joy is actually possible.

Life often plays along for some time with those people who are focused on results, and from the outside it seems that they achieve success through their own efforts. But if you observe their life further, then somewhere later the whole result disappears, and in the process of obtaining it, a person lived like a stretched string in constant tension, since striving for the result required constant investment. Only the body slowed down the disease.

Slowly (often through unsolvable problems) people become frustrated with the idea of ​​a goal (the idea that it is important and leads to something significant). Self-images are destroyed. This is the process of reducing the sense of self-worth, reducing the tendency to expand the boundaries of the ego, this is the beginning of the process of liberation from the power of ideas about oneself. The path to oneself lies through the rejection of oneself known. On the way to yourself, you can meet with yourself real, unartificial, spontaneous, born from the uncertainty of the present moment, and not supported from the past or from reliance on any goal or idea.

From the outside, a certain illusory idea is created about the success of other people, about the will and about the sources of desires. Plus, the very human desire to believe and be drawn into the captivity of illusions, based on something from the past and on the habit of turning a blind eye to the truth, which creates a general confusion of people, if you look around. If you look around, it seems that everyone is running somewhere (towards goals), as if knowing where. But in fact, no one knows anything, but creates an appearance for others (as part of the image of oneself for the eyes of others).

Therefore, non-deep psychologists are also doing their job and it would be wrong to say that they are not needed, in the first place, since they are. And, secondly, perhaps the benefit of their work lies precisely in the fact that they approach the problems of their clients in a paradoxical way from the opposite, through strengthening faith in different types illusions and temptations offered by a world free for all ways of life.

The medical approach to psychotherapy is harmful because it teaches you to trust the body. As if the body is the master of man, the master of everything. If the body has climbed onto the throne of consciousness in a person, then this is the end of joy, because there is no limit to satisfying the needs of the body. The body will always be something not enough. The primacy of matter in medical psychotherapy is the basis of knowledge about a person. The primacy of consciousness is leveled through this. The concepts of God (the Whole, the Self, the Atman, and others), the concepts of the Unconscious and other concepts that point to the primacy of consciousness are swept aside. If the body is primary, then it is possible to influence it successfully with the help of medicines. It may be necessary to influence something (when there is no other left), but the very approach to the human being, to consciousness, in medicine is turned upside down. There is no concept of the structure of the psyche (and the world) that would suit the doctors themselves. If something, God forbid, something bad happens in the life of a doctor, then he runs to a healer or turns to God, like all other ordinary people. The paradox is that what stronger man relies on the material, the faster he becomes disillusioned with it and reaches for the Mystery. Then it reaches out to comprehend life, through trust in it and relying on it, opening the dimension of the soul.

So, if a person does nothing on purpose, trusting life, abandons the idea of ​​achieving a result, then he begins to gradually accept himself, meeting with his real self (unknown to the mind).

If a person accepts himself, then he accepts the world around (unknown to the mind). Self-acceptance and trust in life are two sides of the same coin.

This is how trust in oneself and in the world is born, where one remains to live in unison with life itself, without disturbing the harmony with one’s unwise actions, a childish sense of life returns, in which there is always a place for mystery and joy.

But if a person has not lived wisely (not correctly) for a long time, then in order to experience the joy of life, he must, of course, not only learn to “do nothing” (as in childhood), but also allow what was created through incorrect actions to fall apart. (effort). The spiritually oriented psychotherapy of the East calls this "letting go".It means to let go of everything that a person is holding on to. So that the unnecessary leaves by itself, but for the necessary, a place is freed up. Actually, everything that is not needed falls apart on its own, but often a person clings to something that is already destined to leave his life a long time ago. This is where suffering comes from. And from trying to make an effort and keep something, additional problems and symptoms can form.

What is considered "not right" or "not wise" actions? These include:

• living not your life,
• work out of place
• attempts to build relationships without overcoming symbiosis with parents (without psychological separation from mother, father and from their couple),
• an attempt to take on (or throw off by force) someone else's burden (the phenomenon of "transgenerative transmission" through family-generic energy-information channels ("heredity"), for example, the transfer of other people's "debts", feelings of guilt, responsibility, unmourned grief, archaic unprocessed experiences, etc.). Everything that the ancestors could not cope with and threw the society (the collective unconscious).
• attempts to fill the inner void with the outer,
• focus on the result and the pursuit of the result (for the same, for example, joy),
• actions because of attachment to the result (and not for the sake of the process itself),
• attempts to do something for something (not creative actions, actions from the mind).
• ... and other things that practicing psychologists, spiritually oriented psychotherapists and psychoanalysts face.

It is possible to combine all this with “unconscious and empty actions” due to the erroneous idea inspired by the close environment that joy (happiness) must be sought, strived to receive, deserve, earn, change, etc., where there is no initial premise that that joy fills itself from within, and does not come from outside. And not knowing that joy (or happiness) cannot be a goal or a target. Because when a person sets goals, he cannot take into account the whole picture of the universe and all the cause-and-effect relationships within this constantly changing living structure. When setting targets and shooting at them, a person in most cases is mistaken. And since sometimes something coincides (or something seemed to be looking at others), a person often continues to believe that he will be able to “win against life” (others did not succeed, but he will succeed). You cannot build happiness with your own hands. People have common hands, life is one whole for everyone. Therefore, it is said that in order to return joy, one must do nothing, as if not participating in anything on purpose. As if to stop investing the personal in the whole, and then the whole itself will take care of the rest (about the return of internal balance, about joy, about problems).

It should be recognized that it is quite difficult to do without support, the process can drag on for more than one decade.

The question is who can help modern man to go through the pain that lives inside, and thus closes the joy?

We believe that God Himself will probably do this, leading everyone in his own ways, including through illness, a symptom, psychotherapy, a spiritual master.

Or for atheists - a psychotherapist as an instrument of talent to help others, born from the nature of everything that exists.Recall that a person does not live out of joy (which fills him from within in a natural way) if he has “injuries of pain” in the field of feelings, born in relations with the first objects in his life (i.e., with parents). A person very often does not live out of joy, but compensates with his actions and activities (interests and work) for inner spiritual pain. Most people run into something from themselves. It is impossible to escape from pain, as painful “symptoms” are formed (external situations or internal illnesses, internal conflicts or external, family conflicts). The size of the pain and its quantity are different and often require the help of not an informational and consulting nature, but psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic help is often good when the resource is restored, abilities are opened, help is provided in the processing of pain (the healing mechanism of "transference-countertransference", processes of "containment", training in working with the preconscious, training in the ability to "mentalize", etc.). The absolute fact is that we cannot interpret our unconscious well without an outside observer uninterested in our use. Here you need a psychoanalyst and his specific technique.

Faith helps a believing person to go this way, but faith, which is actually realized in reliance on God. The believer (or spiritual person) is not the one who goes to church, but the one who lives according to the will of God (or the one who is interested in understanding it). It's easy to deceive yourself. Therefore, it is important to meet a spiritual master. When the student is ready, the master appears. Nobody is specifically looking for anyone.

It is difficult to interpret spiritual teachings on your own (any): Christian, Muslim, and other teachings for the advanced, with their characteristic features- ascetic practices for working with "addition", Sufi stations and the concept of surrender, Zen koans, acceptance and understanding in neo-Advai and Advaita Vedanta, the subtleties of dzogchen and Tibetan Buddhism, the correct attitude to the practices of concentration and meditation, Kashmiri Shaivism and others distributed in a world without borders.

It is not for nothing that the human mind is sometimes called the devil, when the mind, from an instrument, becomes the master of a person.

Self-promotion spiritual path fraught with errors, since there is no third-party, uninterested in the usual, observer. The spiritually oriented psychotherapist-psychoanalyst can be such an observer, interpreting the tricks of the mind and the games of the unconscious. Psychoanalysis specializes in the unconscious and does so in a special way, using a specialized psychoanalytic technique at work.

Psychoanalysis can provide invaluable assistance to a person in self-acceptance, in the study and passage of traumas of pain born in relationships with parents, guardians and objects of identification on the path of personality maturation.

"My Friend Has Gone"

Beyond the limits of the personality, which has often gone through a sufficient degree of "parking" of traumas of pain inside, it is usually taken out, met by a "random" way, by a spiritual master. A person living in the dimension of personality can only be helped by someone who himself is outside the mind and personality, in the dimension of the soul. A spiritual master can help further explore the enjoyment of life.

This is similar to how only a psychotherapist, who himself has undergone his own psychotherapy, can help someone in this process. But what do we see if we look closely at reality? Many things are inverted, distorted informationally.

So, for example, a psychotherapist in Russia is considered a psychotherapist. Although a psychotherapist, in order to engage in psychotherapy, must first study different schools of psychotherapy (especially non-directive ones, which are not taught in a medical university). The study of non-depth psychology takes place in preparation for the state psychological education program. Next, you need to choose psychological school and develop in it, and this is not possible without studying depth psychology. That is, the doctor needs to get one more (after psychological) third education.

That is, in the end, a psychotherapist (in order to truly be called a psychotherapist) should have, in addition to medical education, also psychological, and further, for example, psychoanalytic. Or any other direction from the schools of deep non-directive psychotherapy, which include psychoanalysis, analytical psychology Jung and some spiritually oriented, non-directive approaches. (The "existential psychotherapy" does not apply to spiritually oriented psychotherapy, since it does not have a competent understanding of the phenomena of samadhi, there is no way out of the personality).

Also, the doctor must have undergone personal psychotherapy.

But what are we actually seeing? A psychotherapist, sometimes presenting himself as a specialist in the field of mental health, in most cases does not have any of the above behind him. And as a psychotherapist who shares the medical scientific approach, maybe versed, for example, in psychoanalysis or engaged in psychotherapy of the soul? And how to treat depression without psychoanalysis? Medicines? Antidepressants increase suicidal tendencies, as they increase energy potential, but do not improve mood. And if a person is focused on the result in life, he commits suicide (because he cannot live like others). The medical paradigm of today, which requires a revolutionary revision (as doctors themselves say), differs in many ways, for example, from the psychoanalytic scientific, methodological approach. And even more so, today's medical paradigm is irreconcilably far from spirituality, since the medical approach postulates the primacy of matter (and hence the tendency to rely on the effects of drugs that remove only the symptom, but not the root itself and, moreover, not the soil on which the root is formed ).

The paradox is that psychotherapy is carried out by people who were allowed to do it by officials in power (aimed at goals), that is, people who are as distant in character as doctors from understanding and deep psychology and worldview of spiritual people. Doctors have gone so far away from understanding the structure of a person that they do not even consider in their scientific medical theories the phenomena of the Self, the unconscious. They consider a person as an organism controlled by the mind (the mind is the master - as we considered above).What are the consequences of such an attitude towards a human being? The consequences are that in the medical psychotherapeutic approach the knowledge of the schools of non-depth psychology and directive psychotherapy is used. The essence of the approaches of these schools revolves around the importance of just one of the possibilities of a person (moreover, leading away from happiness and freedom) - to control oneself and one's consciousness, based on desires, will and mind. Man's will, his mind, the entire conscious part are all superficial phenomena. And the unconscious as a construct is denied by doctors. Formulations, at least with some backlash around the phenomena of the Self, the primary unconscious for a psychotherapist are "non-scientific" (forbidden).

If you are lucky, you may meet a psychotherapist (or psychiatrist) who really “saw” some phenomena for himself in his personal experience or in the process of undergoing personal analysis. But then such a specialist applying psychoanalysis no longer calls himself a psychotherapist, but calls himself a psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst can no longer work as a psychotherapist (there are differences in approaches and in understanding phenomena).

Conventional psychology and medical psychotherapy are areas that study the consciousness and the subconscious, focused on the belief in the importance of directiveness, the primacy of will and mental processes. The work of the brain is primary and determining in terms of the functioning of consciousness. The concept is postulated that consciousness is the result of brain activity. The facts discovered by Eastern scientists, yogis, saints, enlightened and spiritual masters of all times and peoples are denied (the facts that our nature is Consciousness, and it exists both without a personality and without a body). The phenomenon of “death of a person during the life of the body” is not considered either - these things are not clear to the mind and are discarded as non-existent.

Psychoanalysis today is, as it were, an intermediate station between the ultimate understanding of the functioning of the personality (ego, super-ego, It) through the study of the preconscious and the unconscious and what is even deeper, that is, beyond the personality. Some French psychoanalysts describe "mystical experiences" (experiences of samadhi) as a kind of "libido reset" (Didier Anzier).

Jungians devoted their lives not only to the study of the "shadow", but also to the study of the primary unconscious, the Self, the transcendental function.

Only based on a holistic picture of the structure of a person, without discarding any phenomena, but on the contrary integrating new explanations into oneself, one can approach the issue of treating diseases and painful symptoms. The medical approach (in its current form) is not holistic, limited.

Having actually “attacked” psychotherapists, we harmonize these above facts with facts about psychologists. There are also many psychologists who work in the vein of schools of non-deep directive psychotherapy, where the emphasis is not on the unconscious and understanding, but on the application of effort, exercises, training, to get results (quick, which gives side effects). This is very similar to the trend, which is exactly the same in its essence, among believers who “seek” and engage in spiritual practices (this is not only about replacing personal growth spiritual, but about the approach of effort and getting results, which often, on the contrary, leads to the side, since in fact it is an unconscious departure and escape, and not a movement towards a noble goal).

In Russia, there is a process of slow disappointment in the methods of non-deep directive psychology and psychotherapy, as at least the illusion of a quick result is revealed, then the illusion of obtaining a result in principle is revealed. What we struggle with within ourselves or outside only intensifies and begins to have power over us. Dependence, affection, envy, dooming to mental suffering, rests on this. The soil is formed for the departure of joy.

It is also worth noting that psychoanalysis is also different. Every psychologist is free to study psychoanalysis as he wants, but only a bearer of fundamental psychoanalytic knowledge (and skills) can convey concepts and techniques. There are several psychoanalytic schools, and the school whose adherents are members of the International Psychoanalytic Association is considered the closest to the technique transmitted from master to teacher. The school of French psychoanalysis is especially advanced. Many practicing psychologists-psychotherapists state the effectiveness of "hard" psychoanalytic rules. The reference point in French psychoanalysis for acceptance and understanding, connects with the same kindred elements within spiritually oriented approaches.

Also, in our opinion, a real psychologist should have a clinical education (diploma of a medical psychologist) in order to understand the world of doctors and feel confident in it (as far as possible). This is necessary, because for a psychologist the world of psychotherapists is a foreign world, it is a world of other values ​​and excellent worldview supports. One must have a certain type of character (and have a certain personal history of relations with parents) in order to have “clinical thinking” (M. E. Burno).

While we are doing something to find joy, or, most often, looking for it where there is none, life slips by unnoticed. And we are already forced to resolve the issue of meeting with death, the nature of which remains frightening and not clarified if this topic is not dealt with. It is foolish to live out of fear of death (not knowing what this is), and running in compensation from pain that obscures joy. Having learned to “do nothing”, we open ourselves to pain, but when we go beyond its dimensions, we meet joy. psychotherapist, psychoanalyst