I keep getting moments of happiness and some part of me keeps stamping them out because I can’t justify them. With the right allowing happiness is possible in nearly any circumstance, and with sufficient effort, impossible even in the best circumstances.
Another phrase I will offer, that I developed to help myself, is that positive feelings never need to be justified, and most negative emotions require regular feeding.
I will offer in this regard as well the differentiation made in Kum Nye between emotion and feeling. Feeling is what is going on in your body. Emotion is the result of how you think about a situation, and the feelings that flow from that. A principle task in Kum Nye is decoupling the images and thoughts from the actual feelings. Our body has prodigious wisdom, and can maintain equinimity in nearly all circumstances, IF ALLOWED TO, which for most of us most of the time it is not allowed to. We react to our thoughts about the crimes and malfeasances of others, sometimes for a very long time.