Joy

All of my clients come to see me for only one reason.

They are all uncomfortable and they all want me to help them become less uncomfortable.

Nobody ever asks me to help them become more uncomfortable and nobody ever will.

Eliminating or at least diminishing discomfort is the focus of my profession and I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this issue.

The severity, type, and cause of discomfort vary from one client to another. 

That said, my clients’ levels of discomfort are generally quite significant for them to take the time and trouble to seek me out.

Their discomfort has most often gone on for a considerable time, usually decades, and typically numerous other options to deal with it have been explored prior to mine. Seeing me in order to do Emotional Updating is frequently chosen as a last resort.

Feeling comfort or pleasure is essentially foreign to them. Life seems to be just an endless experience of enduring often severe discomfort.

Over time using the Emotional Updating method, the intensity and duration of my clients’ discomfort diminishes and comfort enters their lives increasingly frequently and to a greater degree.

At the outset of this journey, many clients state that they “just want to be happy”. I advise them that this goal is attainable but that it should be understood that happiness is quite an accomplishment. 

The obstacles on the path between the emotional pain that they are initially living with and arriving at a state of happiness must be overcome - and I help them in that regard.

How far they choose to go on that path is up to them. Initially any reduction in discomfort may seem very significant to them and some are ultimately satisfied with relatively minor improvements. Others aspire to greater lessening of discomfort and attainment of comfort.

I have been exploring this process of diminishing discomfort and moving towards greater comfort since 1987, both professionally with many different clients - some over shorter and others over longer time periods - and myself personally throughout all these years as well.

Leaving the landscape of extreme discomfort further and further behind on that journey has led me to increasingly realize that our potential for comfort is rarely explored and is much greater than we commonly believe it to be.

To illustrate what is possible, I will use a simple example - unexpectedly being stuck in a traffic jam while driving to an important appointment. 

Imagine that the driver discovers that there is no possibility of extricating themself from the predicament. They will simply have to wait until the vehicles ahead start moving and obviously they will be very late for their appointment.

Finding oneself in this situation would commonly lead to frustration and anger. The discomfort that arises can be handled in different ways. 

One driver may start swearing and shouting, blowing the car horn, hitting something and generally becoming enraged. Eventually they arrive at their appointment in a state of agitation.

Clearly this response is immature and negative and does not optimally manage the situation. 

Emotional Updating can enable this driver to change this type of response and replace it with a more mature, positive, and constructive response that would subsequently be automatically triggered in such situations. Obviously this would be an improvement.

Another driver may experience significant discomfort upon encountering this unexpected delay, but addresses it in a rational problem solving manner. 

They could immediately attempt to inform whomever they are to meet that they will be late. They could then figure out the best possible route to get to their destination once the jam clears. 

As well, they could determine what they might be able to do differently in the future to avoid having this undesirable situation repeat itself.

But despite dealing with the external factors causing discomfort, this driver may notice that they are still uncomfortable and would then recognize that they are having an inappropriate emotional response to this situation. 

Again, Emotional Updating can eliminate and replace such uncomfortable emotional responses with new comfortable responses that optimize management of the situation. 

This driver initially experiences discomfort upon encountering the traffic jam, but by addressing the external and internal issues relevant to the situation, they diminish that discomfort. 

However, even the best possible solutions do not make the traffic jam disappear and the fact that the driver will still be late for the appointment is an undesirable situation. 

So, although the driver has done all they can to deal with the problems of the situation, will they not still continue to have at least some discomfort?

But at that point, since there is really nothing further to do besides wait for the traffic jam to clear, is there any benefit in continuing to feel frustrated or angry? I think not.

It is my perspective that this driver has the potential to not feel uncomfortable at all.

It is my understanding that the emotional discomfort that is triggered within us by a situation is an indication that we have not yet developed our best possible strategy for that situation. 

Our uncomfortable feelings, although by definition undesirable, are tremendously useful indicators that there is something further that we must learn or do, a change we must make, either within ourselves or by some action in the world, to optimally address the situation we are reacting to. 

However, once we have done all that we need to do, there is no advantage in holding onto those feelings and we are then able to let them go. 

And so the driver, after completing all the necessary problem solving - internally and externally - would now become free of discomfort. 

They would then seek as much comfort as possible in this situation while waiting for the traffic jam to clear. Comfort is more than just the absence of discomfort.

Perhaps they would listen to music, enjoy the beautiful day, read something, or meditate - the possibilities are many. 

No longer feeling uncomfortable in this unexpected and undesired situation, the amount of comfort that could be experienced would be limited only by the choices available and the driver’s creativity in that regard. 

This driver could arrive at their destination in a state of great comfort.

As we feel progressively less uncomfortable in our lives overall, we can simultaneously develop a greater capacity and more options for comfort.

An extremely important motivating force in that regard is the realization of the relatively brief duration of a lifetime.

We all die eventually and we do not know exactly when eventually will come. 

But regardless of how long we live, life is short. There are only so many moments between conception and death, when our time runs out. And then we’re done.

So each moment we have in our lifetime is a precious opportunity to experience as much comfort as we can squeeze into it. 

Joy is defined as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness” - an excellent description of squeezing as much comfort as one can into a moment.

However, I have come to realize and accept that the universe does not exist to guarantee my continual satisfaction. 

Over and over again we will encounter situations that we consider to be undesirable - some may be truly horrendous while most fall more into the category of inconvenient.

Regardless of the degree of undesirability, all we can do in any of those situations is to problem solve to deal with them to the best of our ability. Once that is done it is possible to let our discomfort go. 

Then we can choose joy.

Repeatedly applying this effective strategy enables us to confront what is always an uncertain future with increasing calmness, confidence, and comfort.

Joy is potentially attainable and can be found in virtually any situation.

First we must leave the world of continuous discomfort behind. As we do so, the possibility of joy increasingly appears as an option to explore.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews and lost his wife and multiple family members to it, subsequently wrote the following :

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

When choosing our response, I recommend choosing joy. It is there to be discovered in each moment.

So each moment we can ask ourselves - “Do I feel wonderful right now?”

And if not, why not?

And then we can problem solve, addressing the internal and external reasons why not.

And once we have done enough of that, our discomfort will leave.

And then we can choose and create joy for ourselves.

We do have that choice.

- Dr. Peter Hercules