Why you can stop chasing good feelings

I clearly remember the moment I realised I didn’t have to feel good all the time. There was such relief as the penny finally dropped.
For so many years I’d been chasing the good feelings. You know the positive, motivated, light, easy, hopeful feelings. It seemed to me if only I could hang on to those feelings I’d be okay. It was those other ‘bad’ feelings like boredom, irritation, frustration, procrastination, hopelessness, despair and anger that caused me so much trouble.
Like so many others I made a mission of finding ways to get and hold more good feelings. I tried so many things: diet changes, affirmations, meditation, mindfulness, medication, therapy, reading self-help books, listening to audios, running, yoga, swimming and more. I was a dedicated student. Yet those good feelings remained elusive. Sure I experienced them from time to time but then those pesky ‘bad’ feelings would show up again and what did I do?
I would panic.
Oh no! Houston we have a problem, bad feeling alert. To me feeling ‘bad’ was a danger zone. Feeling ‘bad’ would affect my capacity to work, focus, love and enjoy life. Feeling ‘bad’ could only lead to feeling ‘worse’ and what would happen then? Chaos, disaster, life as we know it would fall apart. Or so I thought.
What I didn’t realise is that feeling states naturally ebb and flow. We can no more hang on to a feeling state than we can fix the sun at its zenith and stop it rising and setting. What’s more, feeling states in essence are neutral, until or unless we judge them to be something other.
There is nothing that needs to be done with feeling states or moods. They simply indicate ‘how’ we are feeling, not ‘who we are’, nor do they tell us anything about our capability, wellbeing, character nor anyone else’s quality, capability, intention or anything else. They are just temporary states of mind.
If you believe, as I did, that you can’t work or focus or cook dinner or relate well when you are in certain moods, then it makes sense to try and keep those moods at bay.
In reality, moods are just temporary states of mind that pass and the paradox is they pass quicker when we pay them little or no attention (and this applies to all moods). Things might look and feel different depending on our state of mind or mood, but that isn’t actually telling us anything meaningful or useful about the world out there or your innate well-being.
Have you ever noticed how, in a so-called ‘good’ mood, the world can seem a friendly place full of wonder and delight? That same world can look fearful, hostile and grim in a so-called, ‘bad mood’. The world hasn’t changed.
So what to do when we experience a ‘bad mood’?
Nothing
Yes really, nothing at all.
How I used to hate it when people said that to me. If I felt bad, I wanted to get out of that feeling state as quick as possible and I used to rally all kinds of resources to get me out. Things like:-
- Criticising myself
- Judging myself
- Looking for reasons why
- Blaming others
- Blaming myself
- Distracting myself
- Arguing with myself
- Convincing myself
- Trashing myself
Did that help?
No
This kind of ‘doing’ generally made the bad mood stick around longer. I was basically adding a whole pile of thought to a feeling state that was created by thought in the first place.
That’s right.
Our feeling states come from our thought in the moment (whether we are aware of the thought or not). Trying to fix a feeling by adding more thought to it is like trying to make a badly risen sponge cake rise by cracking a raw egg on top of the already baked sponge. The cake’s already baked. There’s no way to fix it now. It’s too late.
Even thinking you need to fix a feeling state or mood comes from a basic misunderstanding of how thoughts and feelings work. Thought is merely energy taking form. Thought in the moment gives rise to a feeling. Thoughts come and go. Feelings come and go.
They are designed to ebb and flow; rise and fall. You don’t need to fix moods, all you have to do is leave them be. Don’t even try to let them go, just leave them be. Just as you would if someone is in a foul temper. Common sense says, it’s best not to try to talk to them, better to leave them be until they’re in a better mood. Give yourself the same consideration.
How do moods change?
When you get a new thought, your mood changes.
Simply notice your mood; don’t worry about it; let it be. This encourages a quiet mind. A quiet mind is more likely to come up with a fresh thought to take you out of that mood and into the next.
It’s like click bait on the internet. If you click on every cute cat video that shows up in your social media feed when you intended to do a work task, you will likely get that tense feeling in your body as you sub-consciously judge and criticise yourself for your lack of focus. Clicking on every video is like reacting to every mood, trying to ‘do something with it’.
It takes us places we don’t necessarily want to go at that time. So you will be occupied but not fully engaged, neither doing your task nor really enjoying the cat videos. Whereas either ignoring the urge to click on the video (that is allowed you know, ignoring the urge) and doing your work task or deciding to spend half an hour looking for cat videos to watch and share enables you to be fully present and engaged on either activity. In the same way you may decide to ignore a slightly cranky mood you experience on waking or you might let yourself go ahead and weep when a sad feeling sweeps through you.
Either way you are just being and doing, letting life flow through you, rather than reacting to every feeling state or mood. Something else happens when we think less and ‘be’ and ‘do’ more.
In that quietness you might wonder at the fact that we have thoughts through which we experience life. You might notice you don’t have to label moods as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, we can just let them roll on through and enjoy the subtle nuances of different feeling states. Nothing is ever wasted. Without a whole pile of thinking added to feeling states you get a cleaner experience of them. When this happened I realised I had rarely let myself actually feel a feeling. In the raw, feelings or moods are experienced quite differently from when you add piles of thinking to them.
Have you ever felt exquisite sadness?
Then you’ll know that feeling states do not have inherently good or bad characteristics. On the other hand when we get stuck, because we have added a whole pile of thinking to a feeling, that creates tension in our bodies. It’s rather like a rubber band ball. You know those ones you see in offices?
The original thought/feeling state is like a single rubber band. It is flexible, innocent, innocuous and light weight. If however you start wrapping thoughts around the original feeling state, it is like wrapping rubber bands around that first one, until you end up with a solid ball of rubber bands. It is hard, inflexible and the original thought or feeling state is completely obscured by the mass of rubber bands. This kind of doing obstructs the natural flow of feeling states.
To leave moods be is to not worry about them, not attach any meaning to them and to know that they have no impact on your fundamental wellbeing. Indeed, you can just ignore thoughts and moods you’re not fond of.
Really, it can be that simple.
The trick to letting them be, is it really has to be a hands off approach. Some moods might last seconds, others might last days. As soon as you put a prescription on how letting a mood be should look,
i.e. If I let it be, then I want to feel better
You are back to chasing the good feelings again and paradoxically that’s the route towards mental stress. To me mental stress is created when we obstruct the natural flow. It’s like damming a river.
So what do you do if you have a work deadline and you feel crappy?
You could expend a great deal of energy trying to feel better before you start the work task or you could do it anyway. Sooner or later your mood will change anyway. It only needs to stop you doing something if you think it should. You don’t have to take any notice of your mood.
Don’t take my word for it. Experiment. Let your moods and thoughts be. Ignore those that are unhelpful. Relax and let them ebb and flow.
You just might find life sucks less and flows more.
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What is your experience of trying to feel good? I’d love to hear your comments.
First published at on the Solcare blog.
Juliet Fay is a writer, speaker and facilitator interested in pointing people towards more resilience, creativity in joy in their life and work.
Find her Three Principles Facilitator services at Solcare.org and creative marketing services at www.onlinesalesmessages.com
