If so, your life might look something like this — You have done everything everyone told you you should do to create a happy life and yet you are secretly miserable. You look at what others have and feel that there’s something wrong with you. You are unable to be happy, to feel successful, to feel comfortable in your own skin. You try, you rationalize, you forgive, you help but still you are secretly miserable. You are exhausted, anxious, hopeless and fearful. You see no way out but have an inner voice that tells you it has to be fixed.

You put on your outer image, go to work, shop for things to make you happy, spend time with friends and family and pretend like everything is ok — but its not. You find temporary relief in this image because it distracts you from your misery. Then something triggers you, and you feel your negative emotions with full force. You search for help. You can’t seek it. You believe nothing will help you. You’re too exhausted to fix it. There is no way out. There is something wrong with you and it cannot be fixed.

If you are secretly miserable, there is comfort, hope and a way out. I was once secretly miserable.

Know You are not Alone

Many people are secretly miserable. No matter what the title, the money, the possessions or the power, many people lie awake at night or wake up in the morning with the same thoughts you have. This happens because we trap ourselves. We create constructs about what we have to do and why we need to do it that go against our inner nature, our values and what brings us true happiness. This is an enormous epidemic that has existed for centuries that has only been exacerbated by our over-connected, materialistic, image paranoid culture.

The Trap You are in is an Illusion

If you feel exhausted, anxious, hopeless or fearful, it is a trap that you unconsciously created. It comes from your past experiences, your culture, your upbringing — not naturally from you. That is why you feel like you are in constant conflict with the shoulds and wants in your world. The trap is just an illusion. It does not exist. You do not have to continue living your life the way you are. You simply need help understanding the trap and what it is and why it is telling you that you can’t have anything else. You have the full power within you to escape it when the trap is seen as the illusion it is.

You Can Feel Better

I was one of the secretly miserable for over 40 years. Outside I looked like a winner to many, but inside I was full of self doubt, self deprecation, and I hated myself. I did not consciously understand this. Now I do. Over a year ago, I wrote down a wish — one that the secretly miserable often have. I wished that I was happy and at peace with myself surrounded by people who love me. I live that wish almost every day now, until I encounter another trigger that goes back to my false self belief that I am unloveable, fundamentally broken, and damaged beyond repair. I now have the tools to observe it and move past it quickly, so my secretly miserable moments are less and less and my wish is my reality.

Getting Help

Many secretly miserable people avoid help because if the help doesn’t work, it reinforces the presence of the trap they are in and the hopelessness they feel. The hope for relief and the fear of the permanence of misery is so great. If the help they seek doesn’t work they go into deeper hopelessness of misery’s permanence. As someone who was secretly miserable for years, I can tell you that there is a way out. I had tried many things before that didn’t work. Therapy, prescribed pills, fighting against the world, self protection, isolation and fulfilling my ego through my success, money and titles from my work did not help. I was not clinically depressed. I was just secretly miserable, caused by a trap in my own mind. I finally found something that worked for me through the study of consciousness and personal coaching. It IS possible to heal.

Moving Towards Healing

To move forward with feeling better, the key is to stop looking for the silver bullet to solve the problem and move to a state of experimentation and play. Think of times in your life where you DID feel better. This tells you it is possible to be ok. It IS possible. Tell yourself that it IS possible, and its ok that you haven’t found the answer yet. Be proud of yourself for seeking the answer. Explore what was different about your life during that time. What did it feel like? What was different about the way you thought back then? How did the trap get created over that period of time? And finally what do you think you HAVE to do that makes you unhappy? Where did that idea come from? See the trap for what it is — an illusion. You are empowered to have the life you want. Then explore what might help you, not with the expectation everything will work but with the commitment to yourself and others that it is imperative to take action. You can solve this. Then take action and see what you learn.