Don't Look Down!

The fastest way to end up completely, totally miserable is to feel bad about feeling bad. Everyone feels bad sometimes, sometimes really bad. That’s life. Things happen, everything from stubbing your toe to someone dear to us dying. But if you decide that it is bad that you are feeling bad you are on a slippery slope downwards.

Why? Because now you have twice as much bad: you have the bad you originally felt about whatever happened and the bad about feeling bad. Twice as much bad! Which quickly turns into three times as much bad because you feel bad about all that bad!!

You see how this goes. Feeling bad can snowball very quickly.

So in my teaching work, where we are dealing with the very sensitive matter of intimacy, spiritual life and people’s love lives, my relationship advice is, “Look up”. Where you put your attention is where you will go… in fact, it is more than that; it is what you will become!

This doesn’t mean don’t feel bad if you do feel bad about something. Of course, it is good to confront emotions, to feel them and feel through them, to clarify and release them. I call that “Corework.” That is very different than “tripping” about them, over processing them and feeling bad about them.

That is a dramatic hobby that I don’t recommend. One I mastered in high school and college listening to Pink Floyd in my dorm room, lights out, candles lit and a relentless focus on what was wrong. I can tell you it didn’t help my dating, social life or spiritual life.

Being diligent about having a positive attitude in life is very different than suppressing emotions with some sort of false positivism. False positivism leads to numbness and feeling bad about feeling bad is a quick ticket to hell.

Don’t look down! Confront what is, and tilt your gaze skywards.