To add onto this, I found it really constructive when I began to understand what was actually causing me to feel bad about being unhappy.

That is, we all have an ideal self that we aspire to, and when we don't live up to this ideal, we feel bad.

At first, I thought maybe it was NECESSARY to feel bad in order to motivate oneself to reach your ideals.

Then, I thought that it might be impossible to feel good when we reach our ideals without feeling bad when we don't. That is, maybe the two are dualistic, by nature, and inseparable.

But, as I thought more and more about my past and how children operate, I became convinced that it's not natural to judge/chastise yourself when you don't live up to your ideals. For me, it's primarily a trained behavior that resulted from judgmental parenting styles -- think, a parent making a child thinking they are a 'bad boy' when they've done something wrong.

It's entirely possible to feel good about yourself when you reach your ideals without feeling bad when you don't -- it just takes a bit of rewiring. If you have any doubt, spend some time around children and you'll see that humans are naturally incredibly resilient to failure -- this should include failure at being happy.

The biggest thing I've learned from breaking addiction is that addiction thrives with a maladaptive relationship to pain. Developing a new relationship to pain, embracing it as a path to growth, has been a key for me in overcoming addictive behavior. So many people I know who continue to struggle with their addictions do so because they're avoiding pain.

I know, it sounds almost silly but its like being in addiction you're just so preoccupied with how you think you're going to feel.

This made a huge difference to me too. I've always done my best to not feel bad. Feeling bad must be bad, right?

I still struggle with smoking, I would rather feel nothing then feel the mental pain. I'm just rather torn, through my years of depression feeling terrible has never felt productive it feels repetitive.

Not just to feel bad, but also to experience discomfort. A lot of addiction is just trying to find relief for temporary discomfort.

I sometimes ask myself, what's the sensation I least want to experience right now? And inevitably I will find something in the body I have been avoiding. (And inevitably, facing it changes my relationship with the experience and gives some relief.)

I think negative emotions are like a stop sign, not a stop light - they mean "stop and look for danger", not "stop, do not continue this way".