At first glance, you might wonder why on earth anyone would be afraid to be happy. But if you think about it a little longer, you might recognize a few times in your life when you experienced an aversion to happiness.

Perhaps you won an award, and then you felt so much pressure to live up to the achievement that you were afraid to let yourself really enjoy your success.

Or maybe something really good happened, and you were so afraid that those happy feelings weren’t going to last that you didn’t let yourself feel happy for even a minute because you were afraid that things would come crashing down. 

You might have also found yourself in a tough spot in life — like, maybe you were grieving the loss of a loved one or you were facing some hard economic times — and you felt guilty laughing or having fun. It’s common to think you can allow yourself to be happy during sad times.

Those are just a few of the reasons why it’s hard to allow ourselves to be happy sometimes. But just as it’s harmful to avoid an uncomfortable emotion like anxiety, an aversion to happiness can take a toll on your well-being and your life too.

On this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast, I share what the research says about why people are afraid of being happy, the consequences it can have on your life, and what you can do about it.

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