Have you ever been in love with a grump? Or worse, lived with one? Isn't it just the worst? Perhaps you've been the one too depressed to show up for a relationship - choosing instead to pull the covers over your head and unplug the phone...
One of the truest sayings I've ever heard is, "Depression causes divorce as much as divorce causes depression." Here's why: a dangerous side-effect of depression is that it tends to make the unhappy person unable to feel pleasure. So, they stop enjoying the person they love most - they're partner, leading them to think they're no longer in love with their partner, thereby setting them up to do the unthinkable... sexually stray!
This tendency for unhappy people to live "double lives" was all too front and center in the news with the fall of New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer - an unhappy man who turned for comfort to a prostitute, who now has what I'm sure is an extremely unhappy wife... The sad irony here is that the very reason most people want a relationship in the first place is they think it will "make them happy," but we all know the old cliche: You have to be happy with yourself before anyone else can make you happy.
So, what can be done to stay blissfully in love and protect your relationships from depressing dramas?
Apparently, a lot.
Join us this week as we interview Marci Shimoff, author of Happy for No Reason - Seven Steps To Being Happy From The Inside Out. As a #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and featured expert in the megahit movie, The Secret, Marci has spent the last 35 years studying what it takes to be happy. In Happy For No Reason Marci combines the best of cutting-edge research findings, practical techniques, and inspiring, personal stories. She'll share with us how to create the "physiology of happiness" - the distinct brain activity, heart rhythms, and body chemistry that create a happy state, allowing anyone to overcome even fear and anxiety.
Best of all, Marci will explain the "happiness set-point," - the level of personal happiness we all have that science has determined is approximately 50% genetic and 50% learned. No matter what happens to us, we tend to return to our set level. But don't despair - according to Marci, we can raise our "set-point" as much as 25% in just a few weeks, and experience a level of fulfillment we didn't know was possible. We'll make sure to get her take on the scandal of the week, and how to avoid - or bounce back from - such painful stuff. So see? There's no need to go to extremes to find happiness in ways you'll only regret...
So, don't worry - be happy! Just tune in, call in and be Enlightened.
Click here to listen to this week's Enlightening Relationships program