My friend is trying to find happiness and worries he is failing. In the eyes of the world, he’s a success: a gifted young professional supported by a warm partner, family and friends. When he’s busy he feels fine. Yet in quiet moments of reflection those external markers of success only make him feel emptier. “What’s wrong with me?”, he often wonders, “Shouldn’t my accomplishments be enough?”
His solution has been to push harder, work longer hours, train harder at the gym, take extra courses and do volunteer work in his community. He hopes, by doing more, to drown out the doubts, to feel worthy and find peace.
He isn’t a client, but knows I’m a life coach whose work is to help others make desired changes. He came to me for advice. I listened first to understand the change he wanted and after a few meetings I was able to respond. The advice I offered went something like this.
“We live in a culture that embraces observable, external success, that encourages doing more, acquiring or accomplishing measurable things. It works for some people. For you, however, the journey for meaning is inward. You need to continue performing in the world. Keep doing that. Then give yourself a break. Make time to stop doing.
It takes courage to stand still in the mess, “to sit with discomfort without trying to fix it”. My friend has been trying to fill the void by doing more and more. That’s worthy, but it’s only half the story for those of us working to ward off low-level depression. He encouraged me to continue.
“Time to try doing les and face the negative emotions that arise when you slow down. Practise sitting still, facing the sadness, the fear, the uncertainty, before rushing to distract yourself with another task.
Even for just 5 minutes a day. It’s an exercise in emotional acceptance, a recognition that uncomfortable emotion is part of who we are. Study where the feeling lives in your body. Sit with it. Then watch as the emotion drifts away, unable to hurt you once you stop fearing it.”
My friend’s unhappiness arises in part from unrealistic demands he places on himself. He sees his distress as a failing, something that shouldn’t be there. I urged him to honour the sorrow without pushing it away.
A healthy identity encompasses the full palette of emotion. Sadness does NOT define who he is, but in its place it’s an honest, healthy part. Pushing it away won’t get rid of it, only lend it undue importance as though it is to be feared.
I wanted my final words to be encouraging. “Try connecting with the sadness. Listen to it, learn from it, comfort it, hold it. To paraphrase an eastern parable: “Instead of chasing after wellbeing, consider this: wellbeing might be behind you, struggling to catch up to you.”
My words didn’t fix anything. They weren’t intended to. But my friend told me recently that he feels more empowered now that he works less on controlling his difficult emotions and more on understanding and accepting them.
After we ended, I sent him the following quotation, which he now has posted on his wall.
“When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are the times that we connect with bodhichitta (awakened mind).”
From The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, page 9
by Pema Chödrön
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike MacConnell, founder of Reflective Mediation, is an accredited family mediator, conflict coach, educator and author. He is the highest-ranked mediator on Google in the greater Toronto area, with over 180 5-star reviews. To book your free consultation click here.
