Feel Better

Image of sandy human hand with tiny & cute crab standing on fingers from Manikandan Parthiban on Unsplash.

I’ve been wanting to write about FEELING BETTER but the message seems so cute and small, I was thinking you might be tempted to laugh in its tiny face. But here goes. We’ll start with the bullet-point version:

• Feel better, feel better, feel better, feel better.
• Feel good. Keep feeling good.
• Notice you feel great.
• Wobble? Feel better feel better feelbetterfeelbetter.
• Course-correct too late, after momentum has built and the wobble has become careening downhill or free-falling? JUST DO ANYTHING THAT MAKES YOU FEEL A LITTLE BIT BETTER.

From there, rinse & repeat, and live your life feeling good, or at least feeling better.

I could stop right there. I’ve made my point. To be fair, it’s a point that Abraham-Hicks keeps making, and I’ve taken it in and made it mine. I want to pass it on to you because it’s important. It’s bigger than it appears to be.

Look, I can see for myself that JUST FEEL BETTER sounds simplistic, but it packs a powerful punch when you actually apply it. When you care enough about feeling good; when you’re sufficiently committed to feeling good that you reach for feeling a little bit better ANYTIME you feel a little bit worse, then ... I daresay it’s the key to ongoing well-being.

So let me add a few things to help you take it in, keep it in view, and get a few ideas in place on how to apply it. (You’ll think of more as you keep playing with it. And if you’re going to play with this at all, this is key: KEEP PLAYING WITH IT.)

What do you reach for to feel a little bit better? Let’s break it down into categories of thought and action. In my coaching work (and life as a whole), I’m always aware of and working & playing with all three centers of intelligence—body, heart, and head. The heart center is what we’re working with as a whole here, so in this writing, I’ll offer ways to engage both head and heart center toward feeling better, thus putting them in service to the heart center.

HEAD CENTER: REACH FOR BETTER-FEELING THOUGHTS
Here’s a simple questioning tactic. Let’s say you notice you’re not feeling great and you remember that you only have one job right now: to feel a little bit better. Formulate a question to give yourself two alternatives: one that goes along with what you’re telling yourself that makes you feel bad, and one that counters it. So you’ll give yourself a sort of 2-part multiple choice question. Examples follow.

Example #1
Imagine that you caught yourself thinking or saying I’m no good at this. Here are some two-part questions you might use to help you reach for feeling better:

• Am I actually no good at this, or do I just need more practice?
• Is it true that I’m no good at this, or have I actually gotten better at it over time?
• That’s the final analysis—I’m no good at this? Or is it just something I don’t love to do but am capable and willing to stay with (or come back to when I feel better)?

If you answer yourself truthfully, you’ll almost certainly reach for the choice that counters what feels bad. (Because you’re not in truth when you’re telling yourself things that feel awful.) If you reach for the mean & rotten option, offer yourself new questions with different choices!

And then notice whether that feels better or worse, to find a few truer, better-feeling things than what you were telling yourself as you started to sink. If it feels better (even a little bit better), keep going. Buoy yourself up. Fully establish yourself in a different mindset. Keep heading toward feeling better, feeling better, feeling better till you actually feel good. Keep going with the same tactic for a while, or follow the next inspired thing that comes to you.

Example #2
Imagine that you caught yourself going into the future with bleak predictions. Maybe you just heard yourself threaten yourself with being unpartnered, alone, and lonely for the rest of your days. You might shift that by asking:

• Do I really know that’s what my future holds, or am I projecting my worst fear from how I feel right now (and making myself feel worse in the process)?
• Is it more likely that I’ll never have a partner or that I’ll have a variety of experiences with other human beings I’m drawn to—and that any number of relationships of varying kinds & value & longevity could evolve over time?
• Will I always feel lonely or is it truer that I’ve felt all kinds of feelings—loneliness included, joy included—and that I’ll feel all kinds of feelings going forward?
• Could it be true that I can equally milk the feeling of loneliness or milk the feeling of soothing myself and feeling just a little bit better?

That idea of self-soothing takes us into the realm of action (the body center), so let’s go there next.

Image of cat with one open eye lying in cat hammock from Amy Chen on Unsplash.

BODY-CENTER: REACH FOR BETTER-FEELING ACTIONS
Noticing what feels bad, reach for a simple action that would make you feel better. Note that this can be on- or off-topic. So if you’re feeling bad about your cluttered home, you could go through one little stack of mail sitting on the countertop (on-topic and feels better) or you could go outside to do some yard work (off-topic and still works to make you feel better).

Whatever you do, keep it SIMPLE. Do the easiest thing. The most effortless thing. The thing that isn’t prescribed by your inner taskmaster or church lady but by the compassionate good parent in you who wants only to support you to feel better. (If you’d like more on conscious reparenting, check out Your Not-Enough Messaging.)

If you feel immobilized, for example, what would be a simple movement? WAIT. First, note that finding one simple feel-better action requires getting out of your head about all you SHOULD be doing. It requires dropping evaluation. It requires bringing it to now, so you’re not preoccupied with your whole work day, your future, your entire life.

What you’re not doing right now is fixing your whole life. You’re not taking care of all that you’re aware of, all that you think is building up with a wordless accusation that you’re not doing enough or with a menace of failure and an untimely tragic death. You’re just coming up with ONE SIMPLE THING TO DO THAT FEELS BETTER:

• Get up and make a cup of tea.
• Do one yoga asana or one qigong form that gently coordinates body and breath and brings you into conscious awareness of moving energy through your system.
• Play music that won’t amplify any bad feelings and may inspire you to move, even for some little sway like the one you go into spontaneously when you’re holding a baby.
• Do a 3-Centers guided meditation for self-soothing.
• Do one task that will bring order or check off one thing on a list or pre-pave for another task that you want to get to later. Do it consciously & APPRECIATE that you’re showing up for that much. Do not berate yourself for something else you’re not doing or for how long it took you to get to this one simple action OR FOR ANYTHING ELSE. You’re trying to reach for feeling better here, so do whatever small thing you choose to do in a better-feeling way, receiving the better-feeling fruits that will likely come of it if only you allow better feelings to flow.
• Take care of some simple body need, like washing your face or eating something nutritious that tastes good or drinking a glass of water.
• Stay right where you are and just breathe consciously. Feel the movement of the breath. Feel the nourishment of the breath. Feel the kindness of the breath.
• Step outside and connect with anything & everything you love there. Or just anything you can appreciate even a little. Or just anything that feels a little bit better, like fresher air to breathe, a whole sky instead of a ceiling above you, a feeling of other things moving, even the breeze, so that you tap even a little bit into the natural movement of the Universe.
• Let go of any & all need to accomplish anything and choose one fun thing to do (or peaceful, or routine-busting, or resetting). Naps & meditation make for great resets, because they stop the mind. So does a whole good or even decent night’s sleep.

(Sidenote. Step Outside was #4 in my series of 5 quick & easy processes for focus & alignment, also derived from the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.)

REACH FOR FEELING BETTER USING ALL 3 CENTERS AT ONCE
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also called tapping, is a great soothing modality that hits all three centers. Here’s an EFT session whose thrust is to get you out of your head and into just feeling better.

I’ll be back with more on how to work with this modest-seeming principle of feeling better. Yup. I went from not being sure I could write about this at all to aiming for a little series. May it serve us all to feel better way more often, and even as a way of life.

Love & blessings, Jaya

P,S. Here’s another blog post on how to reach for a question to get out of rumination and reset the mind.

And here’s one more with 11 quick & easy microadjustments for feeling better that you can make in the moment, as needed.