Everything Feels Bad
Wars, Layoffs, Recession, Inflation, Post Covid life… it’s all… a lot. So what do we do?
My friend Tyler, who is an erudite writer and brilliant entrepreneur, has a very succinct catch phrase he uses whenever things aren’t great: “Feels bad.” If the cake just collapsed in the oven, “feels bad.” If you lost a bet, “feels bad.” If the economy is eradicating the middle class and the cost of living is impossible for most, “feels bad, man.”
Originally, I planned to write a piece called, The Great Layoffs. Early last year, I wrote The Great Exhaustion. It was my response to the incorrectly-titled phenomenon known in media as, “the Great Resignation.” Pundits were endlessly meandering about how everyone was just quitting en masse post Pandemic while they mercilessly buried the lede. The real story was not that people were resigning, the story was that people were resigning because they were exhausted.
Then the layoffs began.
I worked nearly 20 years in big tech and entertainment for some of the most famous brands in the world. I never in a million years expected to see FAANG companies like Facebook (Meta), Amazon etc. join the scores of companies laying people off. But here we are…
So, I set off to write a piece about layoffs months ago but then I realized… everyone felt bad. It wasn’t just my friends or clients who were laid off who were having a hard time. Everyone was. Friends with small businesses were seeing a huge drop in revenue. Others were quietly leaving their coastal states to save costs while espousing the pastoral countryside. To the external world, folks cheerfully posted their wins and philosophies online as usual. But behind the scenes I would hear, “It’s really hard right now. I don’t know what to do.”
(Edit: And now, we also have several wars… and another mass shooting…)
I’m someone who tends to tell my truth on or offline. If you follow me here or on Instagram, you know that. You also know that my last few years have been… not fun! That said, I have told the truth anyway. The benefit of being this kind of person is that other people feel they can tell me their truth.
So, all this preamble is to say, if you’re having a hard time right now — and you’re not telling anyone — this is for you. If you’ve built your identity on your career and now it’s gone or it’s no longer running smoothly — this is for you. If you’ve been feeling alone — this if for you. If you’re overwhelmed by everything falling apart… this is for you.
I can’t wave a magic wand and make everything easier, but I can share some of what has helped me get through 100% of my bad days the past several years. This is also what sustains me when I have bad days now. And we all have bad days, even the people with the bullshit happy Linkedin posts and Instagram flexes.
1. Get In Community
Whether it’s church or synagogue, a temple or mosque, recovery meetings, women’s or men’s circles… whatever it is, get into community and build a new tribe with people you can tell the truth to. I don’t know where I’d be without recovery groups. I also love church (despite decades of church-hurt baggage) and women’s circles. Community is especially important if you’re a Type A, hard working, perfectionist “figure it out-er” who thinks they can find the answer to everything.
Spoiler alert: you can’t.
People like us will isolate in our own shame when things don’t go well because it’s too painful to admit that to anyone else. Find the tribe you can tell your truth to and tell it to them ruthlessly.
2. Be of Service
This one is clearly ripped from the thread of recovery. I was fairly selfish before sobriety fifteen years ago, I’ll be real. I say that because I’m not a beacon of altruism, I’m a person who was fairly useless and was told, “Yo, be of service, so that you’re less of an albatross to society” and I was like, “Fine.”
But there really is magic to being of service. And I don’t mean giving your friends or clients discounts or free products — that’s a marketing deal, not service. (It is also not the same as being a doormat.) Being of service is to be helpful or useful to someone or some cause with no expectation for return.
Being of service can be as simple as buying a coffee for the car behind you in line. Helping your friends do the dishes when you visit their house. Better yet, volunteer somewhere. If you’re truly suffering, ask yourself when was the last time you were truly of service and try being of service in a small way every day. It will give you new purpose and resolve.
Brief story — when I was newly sober, my father died suddenly right before Christmas and I was beside myself. I was full of grief as well as self pity about how broke / broken I was and how badly it felt. A friend invited me to go serve on Christmas day at a center for the homeless in LA. You know who was there quietly volunteering alongside of us? Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. It wasn’t covered in the press. No pictures were taken of him. He was just there invisibly being of service. I felt humbled and a bit less sad. I also felt truly grateful to be housed. (Btw, when I returned the next year to volunteer again… he was there again.)
3. Trust Your Vibes
When times are hard, you need to be ruthless about protecting your energy. If you notice you don’t feel great after hanging out with a certain friend or family member, hang out with them less or not at all. If you notice that when you divulge some truth to them, they don’t seem supportive or give you unhelpful unsolicited advice, pull back. If they don’t show up for you, remember that and ask yourself how much you want to give.
As my mom used to say, “There are people you can trust 80% and people you can trust 20%, the key is to learn which percentage.”
This also goes for practitioners. In the last several years, I quit more than a few medical professionals, as well as therapists. These are people with a “practice.” They are not God, they do not always have the answer for my life. This was not an easy exercise for me at first, because I had to learn to truly trust my gut. However, when I started deeply trusting myself, I found my gut was right — every time. Trust your vibes.
It goes without saying, this also goes for social media. Pull back from using it. Mute friends who post things that bother you if it’s affecting your mental health. Use it mindfully so it doesn’t rule you.
4. Think Less
I love theorist Kenneth Burke’s definition of humanity, “Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal, inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative), separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order), and rotten with perfection.”
We as human creatures always want to be better — whatever that means. When things feels bad, we begin looking for symbols to help make it make sense — and fast. The pursuit of the esoteric is one way. We desperately look for answers anywhere that will provide a pressure relief, because it’s too painful to simply sit and accept that everything feels bad.
I once went to a psychic when I was in a weird phase in my twenties (non sober years). What she said to me led to me never ever returning to a psychic, “Honey, nobody comes here because they’re happy.” Damn. I was hoping she would tell me what to do and instead she told me the truth. I realized from then on, the best thing I could do is find my own truth alongside my own concept of a higher power… because no one else had it.
PSA: A good coach or therapist or wellness professional or clergy person will not tell you what to do, they will help you find your own truth. If you have a therapist or practitioner who tells you what to do… fire them. If things are really serious, they have a duty to notify authorities, but they shouldn’t be dictating your life.
5. Having No Answers is an Answer
And here dear reader, is where I plug mindfulness. Sometimes the best thing you can do is think less and stop trying so hard to find answers. My friend Eva once said to me, “Stop reading about symptoms on Reddit, no one healed is on Reddit.” Jon Kabat Zinn, noted meditation teacher (as well as MIT Ph.D. in molecular biology) said it this way,
“[It] is simply useful at times to admit to yourself that you don’t know your way and to be open to help from unexpected places. Doing this makes available to you inner and outer energies and allies that arise out of your own soulfulness and selflessness.” — from his book, Wherever You Go, There You Are — Mindfulness Meditation in Every Day Life.
I put it this way, “My God doesn’t like to be a backseat driver.” When I practice meditation or pray or walk in nature without listening to anything, I open myself to benevolent unseen forces. I have never been able to find these answers through a Google search and trust me, I’ve tried.
Getting still is not a sexy answer…
…but I guarantee you that if you spend more time getting still than trying to get answers, you’ll find your answers quicker. It’s one of the great ironies of life. So, while everything feels bad right now, please know that this too shall pass. But the first step on that journey is accepting right where you are, just as it is, in all its imperfect glory.
Oh… writing daily gratitude lists. Those help too. Godspeed.
