Friday, December 4, 2009

Feeling Bad and Asking Why

Every now and then I feel it. It troubles me for many reasons. I know you relate, for we all do. It’s that sense of emotional discomfort, anxiety, pain, fear or boredom—and we don’t like it one little bit.

On a recent occasion I was troubled within my spirit and really didn’t feel good. It had been a hot day, I’d felt physically tired (which is unusual for me) and I’d not really tried that hard to relate with some people at work I’d normally make more effort with—I didn’t really know why. Add to this, I’d not spent the quality time with my girls as I normally would—I was a bit distant in my approach and this created a real sense of unease in me.

I almost didn’t do anything with this stimulus, though I have learned a valuable lesson in sorting these issues out once and for all. I was thankful for that awareness.

We are such sensitive creatures when we look deeper into our psyches. We ordinarily go on in our problems during the day, not ever really thinking of why they’ve come about—it’s almost easier to sound off at someone, get depressed or seek a material outlet or overeat, or use (or abuse) a substance; there are so many ways of inappropriately dealing with our low times.

Low times of feeling bad, for one reason or other, are normal in life. Like the times when we scratch our leg or blister our thumb (which we do routinely), low times happen more frequently than we’d like. The solution to addressing the issue is surprisingly easy.

Enquire of it.

I told you it was simple! We must get into the habit of consciously asking ourselves why? Then we must take the time to analyse why. Then we can alleviate it.

The reason this is so simple and effective is when we honestly ask ourselves why, we switch our thinking into an adult, logical mindset—and we are far likelier to identify the issues (yes, plural) that are crowding in causing the unease or pain. (Most of the time there will be three of four issues involved, at least.)

My recent example involved a grappling with a lack of feedback and encouragement in an area of my life which was important to me. (One of my major love languages is that of affirmation.) I’d been tired. My ‘relationship effort quotient’ had also been low—cause had become effect.

When I realised all this it was an ‘a-ha’ moment, and suddenly I was able to assure myself of the recent times when I have been affirmed, the need to get more sleep, and that these people would forgive my lack of effort—for I’m not characterised by not putting in effort.

The nature of life is high and low times ebb and flow. Finding the causes of our high and low times can help us to the end goal of much needed life balance.

Enquiring honestly of ourselves is the ability of awareness and poise—it’s the ticket to ourselves, our very souls.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

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