The 1 Thing Therapists Say Harms Your Happiness The Most

Ippei Naoi via Getty Images Feelings like shame and guilt can hinder your happiness. “So if you’re always preventing taking action because you’re so afraid of messing up, it’s going to really be a paralysis — it’s almost going to be a decision paralysis, an action paralysis,” Siddiqi said. “I think in this unintentional way, we’ve really encouraged people to present the best sides of themselves and to show the good moments and to be optimistic,” Moore-Lobban said. ‘Should’ Statements “Another thing that kind of goes along with comparative thinking is expectations, like what your life should be or should look like,” Dahlberg said. “One thing I see all the time: My clients will say ‘I just want to be happy,’ and then I’ll ask them ‘What does happiness look like for you?’ and they’ll say ‘I want to get married,’ ‘I want to get into this graduate program,’ ‘I want to lose 10 pounds,’ and there are all these concrete goals … a lot of them find that when they, there are still a lot of problems in life, there are still issues, they haven’t reached this ‘happiness,’” Siddiqi said.