After the Manner of Happiness

Remember that one time I had a blog?

I’m sorry it’s taken me months to add another entry. I’ve felt impressed to continue this. I know I need to; life got in the way. But, I’m here now, and there’s a subject pressing on my mind.

I found myself in therapy a few years ago discussing some emotional struggles I was having at college. One thing my therapist told me was that I needed to work on accepting my negative emotions.

I thought I was doing that. I was accepting how torturous and awful they were and actively trying to get rid of them. That’s what he meant, right?

Negative emotions are things I’m always running from. In my head, if I felt a negative emotion—anger, sadness, depression, irritation—it would mean acting against how the Savior would. He would not snap at His friends; He would not ignore His homework because He was sad; He would not struggle to say prayers because He was angry and didn’t want His Heavenly Father to know.

Burying them became natural. Seeing the lighter side of things destroyed depression; service overrode irritation; smiling trumped sadness. While impulsively acting on your negative emotions is bad, what I was doing wasn’t any better.

By not accepting those emotions, I wasn’t allowing myself to feel them. After going to a workshop about perfectionism, I realized that by pretending I never felt a negative emotion not only was I burying those them—I was dampening positive ones, too. 

I had condemned myself to a plain of loneliness when I was trying to trek the mountain of happiness. As it turned out, I was going the wrong way. God needed me going the other direction: through thorny fields and dry wastelands and stormy skies—because the mountain I was seeking was afar off in the distance.

I won’t lie—this was a pretty infuriating epiphany.

And then, it was humbling.

In the Book of Mormon, there’s a point in 2 Nephi when the prophet Nephi is overwhelmed with negative emotions. And that is where we get the beautiful, heart-wrenching passage in 2 Nephi 4. Regardless of whether you’re LDS or not, I suggest taking a look at 2 Nephi 4:16-35. You can find it here.

I can’t imagine that pain left Nephi for a while. He eventually has to separate from his brothers (who are trying to kill him) and take those who are willing to follow God into the wilderness, where they begin to prosper and “live after the manner of happiness.”

Sometimes God simply wills for things to be hard. God gives us opposition so we can learn, grow, become who He needs us to be—how often do you hear that? It’s incredibly true and absolutely why we go through hard stuff in the first place. And that’s easy to say when life isn’t pelting you with trials. I can’t tell you why every hard thing happens. Every time a trial comes my way, I think one of the first things I ask God is why. 

But lately, I’ve simply been met with the feeling of “things are just meant to be hard right now. Be patient.” Because sometimes He just needs us to allow things to be difficult.

“Living after the manner of happiness” doesn’t mean things are easy. It doesn’t mean you’re full of love and joy every hour of the day. If we want to experience the good, we must understand and accept the bad. In order to serve, we must also be served. You are not God. You are not perfect, nor do you have to be right now. God has righteous anger; He weeps when you do; He feels all of the emotions He’s given you—that’s why they’re there.

He will sometimes teach you to accept those things and then ask you to live “after the manner of happiness.” When you are sad, He will ask you to pray. When you are angry, He will invite you to read the scriptures. When you can’t do this anymore, He will nudge you towards the temple. But He will not tell you that it’s not okay to be upset. He will not shun you in your anger. He will not ignore you in your time of desperation.

Because once you’ve done that, when you’ve held onto the thorns and moved through the wasteland anyway, then you will feel Him. And He—He is happiness.

I’ll try to be a little more diligent with the blogs.

Godspeed.