How can you be happy while being surrounded by people who are unhappy? How can you be happy in your relationships regardless of how the people around you act or behave?

The answer is simple:

Practice.

Practice generating your feelings from the inside out. If you don’t have this practice, then your feelings will be generated automatically by however you are stimulated. If you are surrounded by really happy, functional people all the time, then depending on your relationships for happiness could work for you. But, if you’re like 99% of people, you’ve got a variety of unique people in your life who challenge you and require practice to generate unconditional happiness in their presence.

If you often find yourself in relationships with unhappy people and it’s affecting you, it may be worthwhile to look at yourself and how you accidentally generate negative emotions. You must pay attention to what you bring to your relationships emotionally- and often automatically.

If you don’t have a practice for generating emotions on purpose, then your emotional responses are automatic. If your emotions are automatic, then you are likely not aware of what you generate in your life and relationships. People will always meet you where you are.

Taking responsibility for your emotions in your relationships can feel overwhelming. We often think of a relationship as the responsibility of the two people involved. So the question arises, “Why should I have to do all of the work to change my relationship?”

The answer is, because you are the one who feels unsatisfied and wants the relationship to change. If you want any relationship to be different, you get to be the one who does the work. Reframing your relationship to happiness combined with emotional training makes this process a lot easier. Instead of seeing emotional training as a daunting task, see it as a way to create an extraordinary life. Start developing a practice with yourself where you do inner work in a way that is joyful and fun.