How To Not Feel Sh*tty
It’s a pattern. It’s a cycle. You feel good, but then you don’t. Things are going so well, and then either something happens, some trigger comes up and it bounces you back into the blues, or sends you down a spiral of self-loathing and suddenly you're reciting to yourself all the reasons why you suck.
Even if you see this pattern coming from a mile away, you can’t seem to get the train off the track, so down you go, into that familiar void. You feel vulnerable, you feel rejected, you feel like a fraud.
It’s emotionally exhausting. It feels like there’s a layer of sh*t you can’t claw your way through. Of course, you always DO pull through, but you’re so used to this pattern of highs and lows.
The bounce-back only seems to be possible after you’ve done your time, paid your penance wading through this sh*t stream to get back to high ground feeling like yourself again.
Do you feel seen? I do. It’s because this is as common as dirt. All humans feel this way at some point.
The thing is, you have a choice. You can reduce that bounce-back time and feel a lot better, a lot faster.
You might be reading this and be resisting the very idea that it doesn’t have to be this way.
I have a little truth bomb to drop on you right now. One of the reasons we, as humans, resist and avoid change - even if it’s going to make our lives better - is because whatever problem is holding us back is actually so deeply ingrained in us, it’s become a part of our identity and we don’t want to let it go. It makes our ego very uncomfortable to think of stretching, changing and releasing this. We become attached to our pain.
The pain becomes a part of our story - what went wrong, how it messed with us, how it still messes with us, who was responsible for it. This can go so deep that it becomes difficult for us to separate who we ARE apart from this pain.
Think about that weird old Aunt you have who was always complaining about the same thing over and over. Or your friend who never stops complaining about being single, or how men are always screwing her over. Now get really real. What are your stories?
I see you.
Can you think of a few things you’re actually low-key hanging onto, that you talk about all the time even though they’re things that make you feel bad? So, weirdly, we get some sort of pleasure from our pain.
It’s like programming in a computer. If you’re coded to believe you’re a person who hates your job, you’d find it pretty hard to find a job you like, because you’d have to give up the belief that you’re someone who doesn’t like your work.
If you’re treated like trash by your significant other, you might be programmed to think you’re always a victim and that’s your destiny, which might make it really hard for you to extract yourself from bad relationship - because you’d have to let go of your belief that you’re a victim and relationships don’t work out for you.So, enough is enough.
Here are some things you can do to feel better and reduce that bounce-back time, to fast forward yourself through the shit pile and back into the sunny-sunshine life of good hair, witty text responses, being on time for shit and sticking to your daily yoga routine - all things that contribute to your good mood, by the way, and all the usual things that are neglected once you’re in the bad mood zone.
1) Name your Pain. Spend 3 minutes with a pen and paper and try to put into words in a few sentences how you’re actually feeling. Do you feel rejected? Ignored? Feeling FOMO? Feeling stupid for something? Try to identify it.
2) Emotional Time Travel. When was the first time you felt this way? Go back as far as you can. Think back to childhood, or when you were a teenager. There was a time when you experienced this feeling and it got locked in as a pattern for you, and this feeling became your go-to response to some sort of situation. Like, if someone uses a tone of voice with you, it subconsciously reminds you of how your one mean Grandma used to yell at you for getting handprints on the windows or something. Or if a friend doesn’t text you back right away it reminds you of when those c*nty mean girls in your first grade class excluded you from the group of “cool kids” on the playground and you felt rejected like a lone-loser. Remember the first time you felt this way.
3) Check Your Pulse. Yes, I’m basically saying to remember the first time you felt that pain and then I’m asking “but, did you die?” Because no, you did not. You’re still here, you STRONG-ASS QUEEN. It sucked, but you survived. You survived then, you’ll survive now.
4) Acknowledge the Pattern. Spend a minute recognising that the way you’re reacting NOW has a lot to do with the way this similar pattern made you feel when you were little. You’re feeling “x” shitty feeling, but how much of that is real and how much of that is your body’s elastic-band-snap response to this trigger?
Our minds are hella powerful. If I tell you right now to imagine that I’ve just made a pitcher of mojitos and I’ve got a bowl full of freshly sliced, juicy, crispy, fragrant, bright green limes, I bet you just started salivating a little bit. Just at the mere mention of said limes. Your mind creates a physical response to a sensory trigger. The same happens with emotions. So, admit that part of the garbage feeling you’re having could be mind games, and then….
5) Shift + Shine. I’m not describing a dance move my friends and I made up while drinking Malibu + soda when we were 25. What I mean is, shift your attention off of yourself and shine your light elsewhere. You’ll come to know that I am relentlessly bossy about this, but: GRATITUDE JOURNALING. You cannot feel like shit AND feel grateful at the same time. You just can’t. So, as lame as you might think this is, just f*cking do it, OK? Write 3 things you’re grateful for. AND THEN, think of someone you can reach out to and help. How can you be a light for others? You’re all up in your own head. But how’s your BFF or your sister or your brother or your Mom doing? Reach out to someone else and see how you can support them, be a light for them. It could be as quick as sending someone a thank-you note or just saying that you’re thinking of them, or as involved as going through your closet and getting a bunch of things ready to donate to a woman’s shelter. That chic jumpsuit from last summer that you never wear anymore sure would brighten the day of someone who doesn’t have the means to do non-thrift store shopping. Helping others will blast you right out of your funk, mark my words.
Try it - and know that EVERY TIME YOU DO, you’re reinforcing the part of your brain that KNOWS you can CHOOSE how you feel and you’ll be able to bounce back more quickly each time. Time saved, awkward conversations avoided, stress-eating cancelled. It’s a win, win, win. Because you’re a winner, baby. I know it already, you just need to know it, too.
xo,
Krista