That's something different from what I was talking about. I think the way yours works is, you can feel two ways about something -- miserable and happy, let's say, just like the proverbial glass that's half empty and half full at the same time. If you're only in touch with one of those at a time, you may feel stuck in miserable, but if you try "pretending" to be the other you may discover that it's true for you as well.

I don't see it as invalidating. You're not claiming you aren't miserable and never were; you're just discovering that you also have the choice of being happy.

I've discovered that I often feel two or more ways about something -- I may both love someone and hate them, for instance. Not only isn't it confusing for me (any more! lol) but I'm satisfied that I get a bigger and more accurate "picture" that way of what's really going on. The few borderline people that I've discussed this with, though, have said they couldn't see doing that; it seemed impossible to them. I've noticed some of them bouncing from one extreme to the other, never comfortable with either.

Back to what I was saying earlier: it would be entirely different if instead of "pretending" to be happy (and so discovering that you really were), you were to argue that you had everything you needed so rationally you "should" be happy. That would be invalidating, and would most likely leave you stuck wondering why you had trouble feeling happy.

I guess what I started out saying was that "knowing something intellectually" tends to get in the way of knowing whether it's true in my experience or not.