Why Don't We Already Feel Better?

#1 The three things that get us into trouble

Welcome to my new month-long course on how to feel better. It’s not the kind of course where you need to do lots of work or improve yourself. The deal is simply that you FEEL BETTER after spending time with my words and letting them swish around in your head. Are you sitting comfortably?

Illustration by Luisa Roth via Unsplash+

I begin this course with a dilemma.

I planned this topic months ago and envisioned writing you something comforting, like a mug of expensive hot chocolate by a blazing log fire on a chilly day. Since then I read Doppelganger by Naomi Klein and The Future of Denial by Tad DeLay. Both books describe our tendency to avoid uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the world, and the resultant hot water we’ve landed ourselves in as a human race.

Klein and DeLay describe how we project our unwanted qualities onto other people, and ‘other’ them. They bring our attention to the corrosive effects of capitalism, and they demonstrate how we underestimate or avoid the reality of the climate crisis. Their writing is brave and urgently important and it makes perfect sense to me, but I already feel bad for mentioning the climate crisis in a series of letters that is meant to help you feel better about yourself, others and the world - not worse.

I sit on the horns of this dilemma, uncomfortably, for a little while. The question comes. ‘Should I just encourage folk into further denial so they can step away from the awful truths and feel better? Would that be so bad?’

‘Yes’, another voice inside me says, disgustedly. ‘It would’.

It's like a concrete roadblock.

It's a while before a hairline crack appears in the concrete. The crack appears when I start to get curious about my own journey…

Have I moved further into denial over the past years or have I taken steps towards reality? Easy - I'm more in reality than I ever have been. Do I feel better or worse? Better. Undeniably better. How did I approach this journey? With buckets of gentleness. And frequent interludes of delicious and necessary denial.

Can I share my experience of that, and invite you towards your own crisp, juicy, tasty reality? Yes. Yes, I think I can.

The concrete crumbles, and light floods through.

Today I will write about the reasons we don't already feel better, with an accompanying video arriving on Friday. Next week we'll dive into how we can feel better about ourselves, using (of course) the magic of Internal Family Systems. Then we'll tackle how to feel better about others (sadly it is true that hell is sometimes other people) and finally how we can shimmy towards feeling better about EVERYTHING ELSE. Ready?

Why don’t we already feel better?

Before I list the three things that get us into trouble, I want to acknowledge the part that circumstances play in making us feel awful. Massive global inequality? Tick. Colonialism, capitalism, racism, ableism, and a multitude of other treacherous oppressions? Tick. A fallible body and limited resources? Tick. All of these things afflict us to varying degrees, and much of this depends on the blind luck (or unluckiness) of who we are born to and where. These things are real - THEY SUCK. I have found it really important to really see their effects on my own life without underestimating them.

Then I use the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Serenity, for me, is only possible when I begin with a deep acknowledgement of the shitty conditions I find myself in. Only then can I do whatever I need to do - get more information, grieve, share my experience with friends who get it, take action, be angry, hand it all over to Divine Source¹ or whatever is necessary. I do what I can do, with support if possible, and I do it with gentleness.

So, what gets us into trouble? The Buddha knew. Greed, hate & delusion.

I don’t feel better because I don’t just want one bag of excellent Cornish fudge - I want three and I’m back from holiday in Cornwall where the good fudge was now and my craving is killing me.

I don’t feel better because I keep having mean thoughts about the person buying our house who is being much slower than I would prefer and these thoughts leave me feeling yukky.

I don’t feel better because I have avoided cleaning that mess in the corner of the kitchen for days by not looking at it and pretending it’s not there, and it is haunting me.

We want more of what we like. We want less of what we don’t like. We cultivate ignorance to protect us from uncomfortable truths.

So what can we do about all this?

As I write, I’m feeling the ridiculousness of tackling such a huge topic in a piece of writing that you might be reading in the five minutes between breakfast and your first meeting. Some insecurity swirls up, like fetid mud disturbed at the bottom of a murky pond. I want to grasp at feeling confident again like I did ten minutes ago (greed). I want to push the feelings of insecurity away (hate). I want to pretend they’re not there (delusion).

Here they are - the three poisons - coming between me and the reality of the situation in front of me. Making me Not Feel Good. Let’s see if I can approach the reality, gently. Yes, it is true that it’s a huge topic. Yes, many of my readers will skim my writing and some might dismiss or dislike what I say. Yes, it’s true that I’m a limited being with limited wisdom and capabilities and with blind spots and with traits such as laziness and an urge to keep everyone happy.

I am already starting to feel better. As the truth steps forwards, gently, I can see that it’s not so bad. I can see that even if the worse DID happen (half my subscribers unsubscribe on the spot and tell me that I should never to write again) I would survive. I am starting to make friends with the truth, and with all of the different parts of me that are doing their thing to try and help me.

The facts are always friendly, every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true. ~ Carl Rogers

I could say more, but this is already long enough, and you might need to get on with writing that report or walking the dog or replying to that tricky email.

In summary - we don’t already feel better because we are avoiding reality. We are stuck between the serenity prayer’s ‘do something’ and ‘lean into acceptance’ and we are fighting all the way. There are all sorts of understandable reasons for this, and, it leaves us suffering.

We can soften this suffering, even a teensy bit, by opening ourselves up to the truth - the truth about our beautiful fallible selves, or our dear impossible others, or our ailing world.

If it doesn’t feel okay to do this, then we’re not going slowly enough, or we’re not enlisting enough support. If in doubt, step a few paces back and hang out where you are for a little longer. If it does feel okay, then lean into it - like sinking everso gently into a hot reality bath.

The truth may be more consoling than you think.

Go gently,
Satya <3

Next up on Friday is a short video of me talking about being tired and doing it anyway. To receive this & the rest of the Feel Better course, become a paid subscriber to Going Gently - my paid supporters allow me to do this work that I love. If you can’t afford a month’s subscription at the moment do let me know and I’ll sort it for you. And if you’ve already got enough on your plate (or if you don’t need to feel any better! hurray!) then have a fantastic month & I look forward to seeing you in October 🤍

1. I’ve been reading Tosha Silver and so this is my current favourite phrase for a Good Orderly Direction, or the Buddha, or something bigger and wiser than we can imagine - whether this is a part of your belief system or not, maybe you can experiment with the idea that there may be more going on than you can know yourself? I’d recommend her book ‘Outrageous Openness’.