Happiness/unhappiness vs. pleasure/pain - whatever you want to call it. All these sorts of words carry extra baggage, but pleasure/pain seems to carry the least. In particular, if someone asked me, "How do you know you're happy right now?" I would have to say, "Because I feel good feelings now."

Re: your second paragraph, I suggest that you're driving toward my "When do you value?" question above.

As for what I want to signal, that's a more mundane question for me, but I suppose I want people to see me as empathetic and kind - people seeing me that way gives me pleasure / makes me feel happy.