When sadness becomes a daily, persistent experience that isn’t dramatically terrible, it can turn into stable misery. We can get so used to being unhappy, it becomes a bearable normal, even though it’s not healthy or fulfilling.    The good news is, we do have the power to move ourselves out of this place, and we can make our lives more fulfilling and joyful. But until we recognize and honor the things that need to be healed, they will keep showing up in our lives and impact how we show up in all our relationships.    In order to get out of stable misery, we need to be willing to dive into the things that trigger us, and work on moving towards joy step-by-step.    How can we identify stable misery in ourselves? Why should we explore the things that trigger us? In this episode, psychologist and family empowerment coach Dr. Lynyetta G. Willis, joins us to discuss the tools we can use to overcome triggers and unhealthy patterns.    Anything that you’re avoiding in your own personal journey is going to inevitably in some way, shape or form, be passed on to your kids. -Lynyetta Willis   3 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode   The 4 Horsemen of Parenting Pain, blame, shame and avoidance are some of the negative experiences we might have faced in childhood. These things can make us feel unworthy, not good enough, and thinking that our voices aren’t important enough. These horsemen will gallop with us into adulthood and even into parenthood and need to be addressed.    Going from sadness to joy is a process, not a sudden change Getting out of stable misery is not like a light switch, it’s more of a dimmer switch. We’re not going to go from stable misery to complete happiness in one go. Instead of thinking about completely getting out of misery, it’s about taking one step each day to bring us closer to joy.    Deal with the trigger internally, not externally Unless we deal with the thing that’s bothering us, it will weigh us down like a rock and just get heavier the more we avoid it. Dealing with triggers doesn’t mean addressing them externally, it’s more about dealing with them internally. It’s more about not ignoring why it’s coming up and why it’s triggering us.