How accepting your ‘bad’ moods can actually make you happier

The Washington Post:

We all say we want to be happy. But that isn’t the right goal, argues Todd Kashdan, professor of psychology and a senior scientist at the at the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at George Mason University. Kashdan is co-author with Robert Biswas-Diener of  The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why being your whole self – not just your “good” self – drives success and fulfillment. He explains:

Q: Just what IS the upside of our dark side?

Kashdan: One of the most important things that we’ve discovered – the message that we should always feel good and try not to feel bad, ends up being a toxic message that doesn’t work well as a strategy for going through life.

One problem is, there are so many things that affect our thoughts and emotions that we can’t control. Temperature. Hormones. Circadian rhythms. And here’s the big thing – we can’t control what other people do, only how we react to them. So that’s a big problem with having positive emotions as an indicator that our lives are going well, or using positive emotions as a goal –we can’t control it.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post