Why Feeling Like Shit Is Your Best Path To Happiness
Want to find your path to happiness? Then read this very cool guest post from Therese Sibon.
Your day starts in hell. The train door slams in your face and moves on without you. You miss your interview.
You’re stuck in traffic and a fender bender plummets you into an insurance nightmare.
Your start-up has wound down.
Your day starts in hell, enters a dimension of damnation and spirals out of control.
It sucks. Totally.
The culture-at-large counsels you to Think Positive! Be Grateful for All You Have! A Smile Changes All – Science has Double-blind Proof!!
While part of you wants to bypass the misery and jump into joy, another part is nauseated by chirpy pep talk.
The best way to get happy?
Be Miserable To Find Your Path To Happiness
100% Nasty
Feel every, single nasty, furious, whining reaction to the shitty situation and make no attempt to improve it. Feel it in your bones and in every cell of your body.
Rage on.
What happens when you don’t feel misery, anger or envy?
You stuff it. Fake it. Your deep, dark, emotional secret remains unrevealed to friends and family, Instagram and Facebook.
Looking around, it seems like everyone else has it under control. Everyone else appears happy.
I’m the freak, your inner voice concludes as your hidden shame becomes an added misery.
Annihilation Won’t Make It Disappear
What happens when you annihilate, medicate, or suffocate any feeling that creates any discomfort any time
Where do you go from there?
If you’ve ever watched a toddler when thwarted, he hurls himself to the ground, battering whatever is in reach, yelling his tiny head off. No doubt at all – he is miserable.
What follows?
He gets up, tears still dripping off his chubby cheeks …. and looks for what’s next.
Misery felt. Misery over. On to the new.
When Being Too Positive is Dangerous
When things go wrong and we acknowledge the crap, we move through it easier.
Then there are tragic events which require a similar, though nuanced approach.
Last year, a tragedy occurred in our local high school. One of the track members dropped dead of a heart attack during a meet. He was 16 years old.
After his memorial service, I picked up my daughter and her close friend, a track runner who had witnessed the horrific event. I asked them how they were doing.
My daughter was speechless, tears running down her cheeks. Her friend smiled and nodded vehemently, “I’m fine, I’m ok.”
I’m fine, It’s all good, It’s ok – are typical responses to bad situations. I have heard them often during acute trauma, both physical and psychological.
It’s a shock response and probably a salvation in the moment (the issue so bad you cannot even fathom it). But repeated holding of these statements are not only inauthentic, they’re dangerous.
The young woman was going into shock, all the while smiling and being “fine”.
Lessening the Shock of Tragedy
Concerned about her welfare, I took the two young women home. We sat by a window and watched the stars come out.
We discussed the horror. We sobbed.
The next morning, the two were still grieving, but in the process of being ok with it. Really ok.
While it may be terrifying to encounter the pain in the moment of deep loss, ultimately it transitions your suffering to a grief that, while still sad, is manageable.
Acknowledging the effects of a tragedy from the beginning, lessens the potential for PTSD and chronic holdings of unprocessed mourning
When Just Fine is Just Fucked
In Bruce Springsteen’s new memoir, he reveals his lifelong struggles with depression.
What? The Boss struggles? While his music portrays the depths of darkness, they’re merely songs.
The real Boss gets onstage and blasts it out to millions of people.
No struggle there.
Of course Springsteen experienced the despair of his unique perceptions on his life and the life of the underdog!
Can you imagine the muzak he would have created had he blanded out the bad for the sake of feeling …. just fine?!
In a recent interview, Springsteen discusses his hit song, “Born to Run”, written as a young man about his desires to run away from life’s troubles.
He mentions his father’s mental illness and muses on that being his dad’s story as well. “It was just, I gotta get out of here.”
How to Feel like Shit …. Forever
If you really want to stay miserable, run away from it. Keep telling yourself it’s fine when it is not. Smile.
Better yet – rebuke yourself for feeling miserable in the first place.
The effort it takes to do that will exponentially intensify the feeling of “I’m not [insert: good, intelligent, lucky] enough” to get out of this crap.
Or – you can embrace your misery. Feel it deeply. Feel it devastate you. Wallow in it.
Tell yourself it’s ok to feel like shit before you transform it to something better.
Transforming Shit to Gold
The negative of misery contrasts and highlights the positive of what you want, flip sides of the same coin.
Feel all your despair, darkness, shit and suffering.
Deeply. Totally. Madly.
Feel its power. (It’s powerful enough to ruin your day.)
Then … take a breath. Take a break.
Ask yourself: What do you want? (Not this, for sure!)
Like that toddler shaking off the rage, that young woman acknowledging her grief, the Boss creating art from darkness …. take the power of your misery and re-direct it towards whatever your heart desires.
Like an alchemist, transform your shit to gold!
Misery experienced. Misery acknowledged. Misery over.
Now on to happiness.
Author’s Bio
Therese Sibon is a blogger, alchemical transformation coach and radical optimist. She believes that any obstacle in your life has power (it’s keeping you stuck, right?). When you focus and re-direct that energy ….. magic!
Therese loves to share her magical resources with all of you. Visit her at Transform Your Shit
Great post Therese. Thank you for bringing this up. The world needs to hear it. It brings me to remember that sometimes I think my ex-boss and mom are either super humans or they are aliens. When I was being honest of my tears bore out of frustration, they think it’s weakness and told me to be more positive. I wish we could be more humane with our own feelings, only then we can truly be living.
Wow! Thank you for sharing that, Cam! I wasn’t aware of the book and I will definitely check it out.
Right now, I am heading out for a funeral, the beloved Patriarch of my Persian friends.
They’re Assyrian and I am curious as to their customs with burial. I cannot help but reflect on my roots and our customs. The Irish wake is always a mixture of tears and laughter (add some alcohol to the mix). It has to include the joy of having known the person, no matter how death arrived. (Why else would you grieve?)
Ha! I’ll take my grief with gratitude. And Love. Straight up.
Thanks for sharing this nugget of wisdom! Signed up for your e-book as well – will read when I return.
I so agree with what you’re saying. It reminds me of the Stockdale Paradox Jim Collins talks about in his book, Good to Great. He says that Stockdale noticed while in prison camp, that the optimists would die from lost hope. What they didn’t appreciate was the need to be honest about your brutal facts and learn to deal with them head on. Those who can hold the tension between “things will get better” and “this sucks” (my words) are the ones who make it. Thanks for the encouragement to go down into my “stuff,” find the gold buried there – and keep going!
thanks, Benjamin! philosophy is great but if ya can’t get it or use it …. limited! thanks for taking the time to comment.
Therese – I’m so grateful to you for articulating this work of lead to gold so well and in such an accessible way. Thank you!
Very truthful and inspiring! Loved it!
Thanks for taking the time to read – and comment! Much appreciated.
So often in my past, I would feel guilty for letting out my anger or frustration and for not pretending I was dealing with everything in a cool and calm manner. I was able to meet a wonderful Gestalt therapist who was my mentor and explained quite simply that anger, sadness and frustration are physical emotions that we have to let out physically in order to move on. Depression will inevitably be the result if we keep those very intense feelings inside. I love this article. It goes along with what I am constantly dealing with which is there is no right or wrong or bad vs good. There is just what there is.
Oh I love that! Yes these emotions are physical energies which we certainly don’t want stored in the body. Not that we go around and just dump on everyone, but process, process, process. And first that means feel them and recognizing them. Thanks for pointing the physicality of what we think are “just emotions”. Perfect, Nancy.
I get it – see it all the time, with all generations. What a prison it becomes!
Sometimes it’s not even a deliberate suppression. We think we are strong and invincible and able to deal with whatever life slings us. So how could we be bothered? But our bodies react with physical symptoms from nowhere (!) and then we begin to realize … we are humans who feel.
Damn!
This past election has been extremely PTSD- causing on EVERY SINGLE PERSON I SEE IN MY PRACTICE!!! Even those who chose not to vote or get involved.
We are more connected and more vulnerable – and isn’t that a gift?!
Thanks for taking the time to reply, Emily!
I get it – see it all the time, with all generations. What a prison it becomes!
Sometimes it’s not even a deliberate suppression. We think we are strong and invincible and able to deal with whatever life slings us. So how could we be bothered? But our bodies react with physical symptoms from nowhere (!) and then we begin to realize … we are humans who feel.
Damn!
This past election has been extremely PTSD- causing on EVERY SINGLE PERSON I SEE IN MY PRACTICE!!! Even those who chose not to vote or get involved.
We are more connected and more vulnerable – and isn’t that a gift?!
Thanks for taking the time to reply, Emily!
I. Love. This.
I grew up with parents who try to suppress their emotions (for different reasons) at any and all costs. In their minds, people who dare to show the emotion they’re feeling are weak, an embarrassment, and/or need therapy. This was my mindset growing up, but in adulthood I’ve learned firsthand the beauty and benefits of what this post promotes. Thanks for the affirmation, Therese!
Yes, that’s it! Shadows and light, yin and yang – one cannot exist without the other. And if we recognize that, we are empowered to an expansion which goes beyond merely feeling good. Thank you.
Definitely love what you’re sharing. Throughout the journey, I’ve found bruce said isn’t that bad, we’re living in the world of ying and yang. If somebody wants to be successful in something and they’ll definitely feel shit throughout his journey.
THhanks for this Therese – I’ve been working lately I’m feeling my not so hot emotions so I can deal with them, rather than suppress them.
Thanks for the reminder that this is needed! :)
I hear you, Sonia. I tend to be a happiness junkey, doing the spiritual bypass from misery to great! That can be a superficial fix, because I was never there in the trenches to begin. NOw with the U.S. turned upside down with strife, I find it even more crucial to grapple with the shadows and devastation. Still there, BTW. Thanks for taking the time to comment on your life.
Thanks a lot, Tim. We all should B+ (though my blood group is O+) :p
“Change your attitude, life can be changed ….” how was that, Tim. Please reply.
Some very powerful points Therese and I think for many people really good advice. Faking it does no one any good. It’s worth noting that a few people are different the assumption that if you ‘feel all your despair madly, deeply’, you’ll automatically work through it and pop out the other side I think underestimates how such feelings can pull you under if you surrender to them completely. I’ve tried both approaches and for me, the first was almost fatal. So I can’t disagree with your suggestions for the majority, but for some, I’ll go the other way:)
Mark, I am so glad you brought that up! There is a fine line between feeling the depth of emotions and falling into despair. The suffering we feel becomes destructive when we slide into harming ourselves – through comparisons to others, self putdowns, lack of faith in our own magnificence.
These past few weeks I have seen major meltdowns – from clients and kids (ok myself included!). There is a benefit to self-expression up to that one point – when it goes into self-destruction.
And then, you gotta STOP. You don’t wade in quicksand – it’s too freakin’ hard to get out.
I had – in the back of my mind – an idea to write on this very topic and I am so grateful you reminded me!!
So well said and serendipitous that I found this today, having come to this awareness only yesterday. Ultimately , the running from your feelings is an attempt to escape who you are. Nothing good ever comes of that. In difficult times I always berated myself for not doing better. But I am a person who feels things deeply and no attempts I’ve ever been able to make to “rise above” that have ever served me. My emotions serve me. And when I’m on an emotional roller coaster the way o can serve myself best is to hold on and express the journey in writing. In that way I have a chance to salvage something, to make something beautiful out of something painful. In a way, we are all born to run. Thank you for sharing this aspect of Springsteen. It is his emotional offering that we resionate with when we hear his music.
Oh, yes, Lori – finding expression to the tsunamis of emotion! So much better than sucking it up, running, denial … all the power of the feelings will go somewhere and as an acupuncturist, I see the holding patterns in people resulting in disease and physical pain. Even if we run, these unexpressed feelings remain behind. I am so happy you write – we need passionate people who can express the feelings we may be too afraid to let out!
Nicely put.
A HUGE compliment coming from you, Miranda! Thanks.
Great advice!
Thanks! You have a powerful website, H.S.!
I completely see where you’re coming from with this. I’ve managed to sort out so many things that I want just by being in a situation that was the polar opposite. Sometimes you don’t know exactly what you want until you realize what you don’t.
~Lea
ha! aren’t we humans funny creatures, Lea? There are so many options available that it can become paralyzing – then we get hit with what we don’t want and it becomes clear! Thanks for sharing your perspective.