Sometimes It Just Feels Bad. (And That’s OK.)

On a recent day nine months into a struggle to heal a dislocated clavicle I hit a low point. I cried before, during and after my weekly manual physical therapy session, beyond frustrated with the brutally painful but as-of-yet unfruitful attempts to return my body to pain-free functionality.

And that afternoon I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. 

I didn’t want to positively reframe it. 

I didn’t want to look on the bright side or seek out the growth opportunity in it all. 

So I didn’t. 

I let myself deeply feel the UGGGGHHHHHHH of it. I let that afternoon just be a grief-y, heavy, terrible-feeling one. 

By the next day I could feel the more growth-oriented, spaciously-minded parts of me starting to reawaken. My vision broadened back out to sense the bigger picture again. 

I felt the energy to start to clarify a renewed action plan to address the issue resurge. I heard whispers of equanimity reminders (This will pass. The rest of our body is strong and healthy. We’ll figure out what we need to continue to heal.) pass through my consciousness. 

I started to feel better, more “like myself” again — but not because I forced myself to try to feel better. 

Rather because I allowed myself to fully feel badly so that I could genuinely and organically feel better on the other side.  

If we’re habitually and unconsciously used to indulging feel-bad feelings and the unhelpful thoughts that lead to them in a reactive way, then we’re likely to stay stuck in that “negative” mud for a long time. 

But if we make a conscious choice to allow ourselves a period of time, whether a few minutes, hours or days, to dip into the “low” feelings and consciously allow ourselves to really feel them — to witness them from a bit of depersonalized distance, to observe them with curiosity, to let them pass through, process and integrate without resisting them — that is purposeful. 

I know this conflicts with “Just stay positive!” advice. 

But “staying positive” is no longer positive if we’re using that cognitive reframe as a strategy to avoid what we’re actually feeling. 

And yes, as with every other universal Truth, it is paradoxical to these human minds of ours to think of allowing ourselves to feel as bad as we feel when we feel bad but by doing so get to experience the slingshot effect forward toward more clarity and expansiveness. 

And while, yes, of course we don’t want to just let ourselves stew in mentally-inflicted misery indefinitely when we’re feeling low, I’d like to propose that you play with dipping a toe into really allowing yourself to feel whatever you’re feeling while you’re feeling it. 

No resisting or reframing required. And then notice how the energy starts to shift on its own once that wave has passed through. 

You're human, and things just feel bad sometimes for us humans. That's OK. You're allowed your full humanness. 

Lots of Love,

Melissa

PS - If you’re curious about exploring these themes in a sweetly personalized way, be in touch about 1:1 coaching possibilities.