Just making the space every damn day matters. I'm starting to think I need to fine tune the description of that practice though.
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You mean in the sense of: opening up to negative emotions, but passing over it in silence if nothing comes up?
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But people seem to often have nothing going on. How did they get so happy? Maybe they had nice lives!
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It's not happiness; it's not-unhappiness. Low neuroticism.
Personality + relative lack of childhood trauma and parental stress.
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Plenty of very happy people who are yet also basket cases. Different modalities.
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Basket case in which sense of the phrase? I’m sure you’re probably right on this - just in terms I haven’t considered before.
I think often that happiness isn’t the right goal for meditators, one can be happy and sad at the same time and still feel very well & wholehearted.
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I think that lines up quite well with your use of ‘low neuroticism’ - but I’m not so sure. Need to consider this more I guess.
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It's not mine. It's one of the few stable findings of psychology. Big five.
Happiness relates to extraversion, mostly.
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Low neuroticism is low reactivity to and propensity for experiencing negative emotions. Lingering less on them, too.
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I sometimes have manic - hypomanic - tendencies, but generally I am not very excitable (the dimension of extraversion closest to happiness).
Hence I often experience sitting w/emotions as "huh, it sure is quiet in here."
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