Ep #351: If You Want to Feel Good All The Time

Hi! Let’s talk about feeling good all the time.

It’s something so many of us would love to experience.

We’d never feel uncomfortable, never feel bored, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, lonely, or any other uncomfortable emotion.

All we’d feel is happy, excited, content, connected, love, loved, feelings that feel good.

It might sound like an ideal way to live.

But unfortunately, it’s just not going to happen.

It is not attainable for us humans.

Even if we have our dream jobs, dream partner, dream family, dream social life, dream home, dream everything, we’re still going to experience negative, uncomfortable emotions.

It’s just inevitable and unavoidable.

Because, we are not in control of everything and every one and we can’t even be 100% in control of our thoughts and the emotions they cause us to feel.

So people are going to do things that we don’t agree with and things we don’t like.

We are going to have negative interpretations of things and things are going to happen that we perceive as bad, sad, annoying, frustrating, stressful, or overwhelming.

That’s part of being a human.

But many people don’t accept this.

Or at least, they don’t accept the frequency and intensity of negative, uncomfortable emotions that is normal to feel.

They think they should feel good more.

And here’s the crazy thing that can happen sometimes.

They get upset about not feeling better and in doing that, they’re right there, stopping themselves from feeling better.

Instead, they’re causing themselves to feel upset about their emotional reality rather than feeling neutral, or accepting of it.

And here’s what can also happen.

They’re not happy with the frequency and intensity of their negative emotions so they look for a quick fix to feel better.

And of course eating is one of those quick fixes.

It’s a quick and easy way to feel better, to feel good, to distract from their emotions, or to numb their emotions.

So they do it. And they might do it a lot to try and feel more good feelings than they are.

Eating becomes their way to feel good more often but, as you know, when you use eating to do that, it’s likely going to cause you to feel more uncomfortable feelings afterward, physical and emotional.

So the attempt to feel good results in feeling more bad.

So many of you would benefit greatly by just accepting that sometimes you’re going to feel uncomfortable, and that it is okay.

It doesn’t need to be fixed or changed right away.

This is how it’s supposed to be.

We’re supposed to feel uncomfortable, negative emotions sometimes.

We’re supposed to be in a spectrum where about 50% of the time we’re on the discomfort side that includes feelings from despair, grief, and hopelessness to feeling just kinda meh and about 50% of the time on the comfortable side including feelings from elation, excitement, and love to content.

So from the extremes to the more neutrals.

Now, that idea of 50/50 of course isn’t exact, and we will go through periods of time where it’s split pretty evenly, and times when we have a higher percentage on either side.

But the point is, we need to be more accepting of the emotional discomfort that we experience and not try to quickly feel better whenever it happens.

I recently told one of my group members that they are a “joy chaser” and I bet a lot of you are too.

Whenever they have moments of discomfort, they immediately look for a way to feel joy, pleasure, or comfort, instead of just letting themselves feel how they feel and not try to feel good right away.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do anything to try and feel better.

Of course you can do something, and I’ll talk about that in a second.

But what I am suggesting is that you don’t try to feel better quickly by eating food.

You let yourself be in the feeling.

And then while you’re in the feeling, you work on whatever it is that is causing you to feel how you’re feeling.

If you want to truly feel better you work on the cause of the feeling rather than just trying to cover it up.

And the cause of your emotions is your thoughts, so that’s what you’re going to work on.

You’re going to feel better by working on changing your perspective, interpretation, or opinion.

That’s what will cause you to truly feel better.

However, sometimes you may not have the opportunity to work on your thoughts in that moment. Or, you’re having a hard time seeing another option for what else you could think because you’re deep in what you’re believing now.

And if that’s the case, you can just allow yourself to feel uncomfortable for now.

You will be okay.

You can get through it.

Eventually, you will have the opportunity and the time to work on your thoughts. Eventually, the emotions will ease up and you will be able to see other options so you can consciously work toward feeling better.

Managing your thoughts and not escaping your emotions is how you’re going to really feel better. Not by eating food.

So, you can feel more good feelings if you do the work on your thoughts, if you work on what’s happening in your mind.

But just know, if you want to feel good all the time, it’s just not possible.

Accepting this will help you to be more willing to feel those uncomfortable, negative emotions.

Instead of thinking you need to change them or that you shouldn’t be feeling how you’re feeling, you can accept that this is how it’s supposed to be.

You’re supposed to feel this way sometimes.

It’s normal.

And you will be okay. You’re a human who was designed to feel it.

You don’t need to run from it and eat to make yourself feel good f ast.

In the big picture, you will actually experience more good feelings if you just let yourself feel the uncomfortable ones, go through them, and work on your thoughts.

If you eat to escape and to feel better fast, you’ll likely experience less good feelings overall because the uncomfortable feelings you’ll experience afterward will likely last longer than the comfort or joy you felt while eating.

And, if you keep covering up your uncomfortable feelings with food, they’ll keep resurfacing because you’re not resolving them. So you’ll keep feeling them overall for longer, making you feel good less than you would if you did face how you were feeling and work thought it to resolve it.

So choose to let yourself feel bad sometimes.

It’s temporary. It will pass on it’s own or you will do the work to facilitate it passing.

Instead of being a joy chaser, be an all-emotions feeler.

Basically, let yourself be the emotional human that you are.

Alright, feel all the feelings on that emotional spectrum, you’re supposed to, start practicing today, just let yourself be in it, and I’ll talk to you next time, bye bye.