As You Know, After the Below Events, Today Has Not Been a Good Day. A Reflection on Sympathetic vs Empathetic Positivity & A Note on Rejecting Anger/Grief-Happiness.

https://weresolvingsociety.medium.com/when-youre-having-a-bad-day-and-they-re-having-a-good-one-the-value-of-sympathetic-positivity-f8efff74d6fc 

Today, I did not have a good day. I was anxious, stressed out, discombobulated and had a lot to do. Given everything that is going on in my life, that made total sense. It happens.

But when I was walking down the street, I heard music. People were dancing and clapping to music, there were perfect blooms of pink flowers clinging to the branches, and lavender flowers were practically dripping off the trees. Yet, where I would usually smile and feel a bit of the positivity myself, a strange thing happened. I didn’t feel anything residual. Instead, I had the notion of, “Hey, why are they happy but I’m not!” This hasn’t really happened before, and I was quite interested in this, as I usually at least feel a little bit of happiness to see people having fun and not hating their experience on this planet. It almost felt like an affront that they were happy. I wasn’t sure where this had come from. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I was doing so much and going through so much, and yet couldn’t be deigned to catch a break. Even though I appreciated their happiness, no way was I going to really empathize with it today.

So what is the art of having sympathetic positivity? When you can’t necessarily feel happy, but you don’t want to take down other’s happiness…(unless of course this is a win-lose sadistic happiness, in which case you should start planning how to get some distance from this person). That said, it could of course be that other people have been feeling happy but needed time to process it and that time they need to process it required you to dim your light a bit so they could feel themselves in it instead of witness to something outside, like the sun. And everyone deserves that.

(And no, you’re not a brat for a day of negativity. If someone is being sadistic, it doesn’t matter what they say to you. That’s emotional abuse, plain and simple.)

Here are some statements and observations I came up with for myself in my day of abnormally sympathetic, instead of empathetic, positivity.

• The most notable factor was I did not feel safe and connected today.
• “I can’t feel this today, even though it’s such a beautiful day and it would make sense for me to feel it. But I have faith it’s not at my expense. I witness your happiness and I remember what it might look like to celebrate and feel it.”
• “This isn’t my happiness today, but that happiness is really beautiful if it’s real. I know I’m just running on empty and if I had more this would be really beautiful. I will acknowledge that I just can’t do it today though, even if I want to.”
• “Even if other people want me to be unhappy, I don’t have to care. I am genuinely glad to see other people happy and don’t mind taking a step back to see how they do it. There are a lot of cool ways to be happy that aren’t like mine.”
• “I know my happiness will come back when I am sure I am safe and loved. Today I don’t feel safe and loved, and that’s why I may be taking other people’s happiness personally. They may not understand that, and I don’t have to explain it unless I have the energy for it.”
• “If someone is angry-happy (sadistically happy) towards me, I can just feel sorry for them and focus on people who are genuinely happy for me. I know that there is something not quite right about those people and I have a right to move away from them and validate that emotion.”
• “I remember a time I felt like that. Let me go back to that time and see if I can align even just a little bit. It will add to their experience for me to do that, and that’s what I would wish as well.”
• “I deserve happiness, and I do not exist to be humiliated so other people know they are at least ok. Knowing I am always around a person like that (myself) is a cause for happiness in itself. I am a wonderful person to always have around even if he/she/they are sad.”
• And last but not least, when someone is happy to see you lose, that isn’t happiness. That’s grief and rage with a smile. Behind the mask, almost always, is someone crying.
• There's no "better luck next time" when you can simply save today's unfelt joy at least as a possible fillable form for tomorrow. I have faith these things come back, and that's why they do.  

https://weresolvingsociety.medium.com/when-youre-having-a-bad-day-and-they-re-having-a-good-one-the-value-of-sympathetic-positivity-f8efff74d6fc