HABITUATE TO FEELING GOOD

your natural state is to feel good

Hey, y’all, you know I always have a lot to say. Note that just having the concept in place that you might want to HABITUATE TO FEELING GOOD, or make that your new normal, is something already. Read as much as you’d like below if you want more to chew on, and at any point please make judicious use of bold print and bullet points and such.

When you wonder what the problem is, part of the problem is that you’ve habituated to problems and to problem-solving as a way of being.

What’s still wrong with you is that you’re wondering what’s still wrong with you, and you’ve habituated to thinking that way and keeping that in view.

Why it’s so hard or scary or uncomfortable or unsustainable [or whatever] to feel good is that you’ve spent a lot of time feeling bad … and it became your habit. It’s habitual. It’s normal.

Except it’s not. YOUR NATURAL STATE IS TO FEEL GOOD.

To be clear and in the name of not lying to ourselves or being sloppy in how we speak about what’s what: It’s actually not hard to feel good.

Or scary. Feeling good actually feels like not-fear.

Or uncomfortable. Feeling good actually can bring in a whole lot of comfort, the good kind (the overindulgent kind ends up feeling bad!).

And you can actually get back to feeling good, even pretty quickly, anytime you notice you’re not there. (The quicker you shift back toward feeling good, bee-tee-dubs, the less momentum you’ll accrue toward feeling bad.)

So in fact, you get to feel good, you know what it feels like, you know how to get there, and it’s not that hard or scary or uncomfortable or unsustainable [or whatever].

It’s just not the habitual state, or hasn’t been [fill it in: lately, since XYZ, my whole life, most of my life, a chunk of my life …].

If you actually DO let yourself feel good pretty often at this point in your life, then let’s BRING IT TO NOW. Sometimes, you can simply say, I don’t feel good right now. Which is your invitation to swiftly course-correct toward what does feel good! Which could mean getting off the topic that feels bad, or moving to a topic that holds very little resistance for you, or just heading toward what would most make you feel good right now within the actual working parameters of this moment. Now, you feel-good folks are dismissed (though you don’t have to go).

If you’re someone who hasn’t yet habituated to feeling good, read on.

To establish a new habit of feeling good, you need to hang out there. Treat it as normal. Let it be normal. Make it normal through repetition.

Let’s get away from, I deserve to feel good. I want to get away from it not because it’s not true, but because it goes without saying. Yeah, you deserve it, but quit tripping yourself up with merit-based thinking. Can you feel good not because you deserve it (of course you do) but because …

• you like to feel good
  
• it feels good to feel good
  
• everything you’re after (intentions, goals, visions, whatever you’re aiming toward) is ultimately something you think will make you feel good, feel better
  
• when you feel good you’re more connected, aligned, at ease
  
• when you feel good you’re more generous, tolerant, kind
  
• feeling good seems closely connected with love
  
• feeling good means you’re not working too hard or expending more effort at anything than what’s actually needed
  
• feeling good means you feel your connection to guidance, Source, higher self [name it what you like] and it all feels easier & like less figuring and plotting & scheming and puzzling and problem-solving and trying hard and struggling and and and …
  
• when you’re loving yourself and being your authentic self, you feel good
  
• when you’re aligned with your own values, you feel good
  
• when you’re applying what you want to live in ways that aren’t punitive or based in judgment or shame, you feel good in the application
  

As you know, I could go on. So could you. Find more reasons you can feel good beyond any deserving. Seriously, list them, or say them out loud. Or both.

Let’s go to classic objections to feeling good.

When’s the other shoe going to drop?
Well, if you stop wanting life to be all good, then you don’t have to think it’s bad or something’s gone wrong when something not to your liking is happening. Then when something’s happening that feels bad or challenging or god-awful hard, you don’t have to call it the other shoe dropping. You can just call it life. You might stop sorting life into good-bad bins and willingly meet what comes your way. Here it is, I’m willing.

You can willingly meet the hard stuff while prioritizing feeling good. Notice that this doesn’t involve avoiding or preventing feeling bad. It involves feeling good now. Choosing into feeling good. And moving away from what feels bad more quickly and more often.

What if I actually have to stay with what feels bad?
Um, like when something unwanted is still here? Or your kid is sick and you’re doing not-fun or scary things to deal with that? Or you’re up with someone at 3 a.m. even though theoretically you’d really love to sleep, but you’ve actually opted in to accompany them through some kind of moment right now for good reasons?

Again, c’est la vie, my friend. And note the you’ve actually opted in part in that last sentence. There’s really no have to here. It feels good to be in choice, to find your agency, to fully opt in to something that doesn’t feel so great right now but, in the larger scheme of things, makes sense, and is part of a human life. It also makes sense to walk yourself gently through this, here and now.

When something feels bad, walking yourself through it well, being your own best ally, actually using the tools you’ve got while you’re in it—that all feels good.

And as you walk yourself through, you can feel as good as you have access to feeling in any given now-moment. You can walk yourself through reaching for those tools of yours that you know will help you feel better as you go. Soothing breath. Grounding in the moment. Using body-mind practices & practicing other excellent self-care when you can. Staying out of the mind predicting bad outcomes or casting this hard moment into some forever future. Taking breaks as needed & as able. Getting support. Noticing all that supports you. …

What if I’m spiritual bypassing when I go for feeling good?
Oh, quit it.

I kind of want to write just that. But okay, fine, I’ll say a bit more for those of you who torment yourselves with this one.

If you ask yourself that, ever, it probably means you don’t want or intend to spiritual bypass. So you already value that and your internal compass is already calibrated to that. You’re probably not in great danger of spiritual bypassing, and you’ll probably catch it if you are without making it a preoccupation. (Also, don’t judge it when you find yourself spiritual bypassing. Celebrating catching yourself and correct it.)

Those who do a lot of spiritual bypassing typically have that as a blind spot, so they don’t give the topic that much thought.

Those who DON’T spiritual bypass don’t get there by constantly worrying about whether they’re spiritual bypassing or not. They’re just meeting what arises, paying attention to what feels off, letting in the next thing that will bring them to greater alignment. Spiritual bypassing isn’t a focus, but living in integrity and being responsible for their work and following their guidance—and other such thing—are very much examples of what their chosen focus might be.

If you fear spiritual bypassing, you can do any number of things: check it out for yourself when you wonder about that. Is that what’s happening right now? Or you can ask your guidance system to show you if you are—bring it fully into view; declare that you’re willing to see it. Or you can risk spiritual bypassing to experiment with something else (like feeling good), and come back to the spiritual-bypassing fear if/when it arises.

In brief: don’t focus on that and just check it out every once in a while. Spiritual bypassing is not likely to be the thing that ruins your good intentions around feeling good.

You may have other objections to feeling good.
Here are 3 things you can do with those:

1. Take them to inquiry. Question whether they’re fully reality-based, or just old stuff (some of which may have some basis in reality or experience, but that doesn’t make the whole objection to feeling good valid).
   
2. Put them aside for a while and run your feel-good-more-often experiment. Do that in the now-moment the objection comes up.
   
3. Notice where your particular objection comes from and work to reparent yourself; teach yourself and practice what you want to believe now. (Example, you were taught, Be polite at all costs, so you still do all kinds of feeling bad in the name of being polite.)
   

Ready to feel good more often? Would you like to consider feeling good NORMAL? Would you like to pause when things feel bad and tune in to what might feel better? The latter would allow you to practice more self-awareness and more conscious movement toward what you want.

To be clear: you do want to feel good. Right?

If yes, please keep that in view and choose into it. Keep going until it’s normal. Keep meeting your own objections until they’re not preventing your joy.

Love & blessings, Jaya