The Fear of Happiness with Deva Davisson

2023-03-30

Have you ever had something really great happen, and then instead of blissing out, you found yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop? Have you ever damped down your own feelings of joy for fear that there would be negative consequences? It turns out, the fear of happiness is a real thing, and it has a name: Cherophobia, the aversion to happiness. It has four strong predictors: an unhappy childhood, perfectionism, belief in black magic or karma, and loneliness. Did you even realize you had a fear of happiness? I did ...

Have you ever had something really great happen, and then instead of blissing out, you found yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Have you ever damped down your own feelings of joy for fear that there would be negative consequences?

It turns out, the fear of happiness is a real thing, and it has a name: Cherophobia, the aversion to happiness.

It has four strong predictors: an unhappy childhood, perfectionism, belief in black magic or karma, and loneliness.

Did you even realize you had a fear of happiness? I did not, and the more I unpacked it, the more I came to understand that this is not an irrational belief; instead, it’s a self-protective mechanism that we can slowly entrain to a different, more useful view, of how to experience joy and well-being.

In this episode, I discuss:

why cherophobia is considered an anxiety disorder even though it is not in the DSM-5
how cherophobia has been studied
the predictors researchers have found across the world and across cultures
the different forms of cherophobia
childhood factors that can lead to an aversion to happiness
attachment styles that are more likely to develop a fear of happiness
the myriad ways that perfectionism keeps us from feeling joy and pride
the sentence stem, “what right do I have to…” and how it keeps us from fulfillment and wellbeing
the differing views on happiness in collective and individualistic societies
the mixed messages women get around pursuing individual happiness and belief in collective wellbeing
creating our own definition of happiness
the loss of control of too much emotion or too much happiness
the lack of rationality brought about by the giddy happiness of falling in love
the co-morbidity with major depressive disorder
the need to treat cherophobia prior to or in tandem with treating co-morbid depression
the validity of our own responses
how the fear of happiness is a self-protective mechanism
the relentless positivity culture and how that disavows our own complexity and our own experience
the psychological concept that anxiety contracts or expands depending on exposure
the usefulness of mindfulness, self-care, and gratitude to nearly every issue of the podcast
starting a small regimen of exposure therapy to happiness
the self-work of learning our own negative bias and stories
how combining mindfulness and gratitude can teach you to recognize small but powerful moments of happiness
teaching yourself through practice and repetition that you can be happy without fear