Imagine this, your co-worker walks into work and you ask, what’s wrong? She feels comfortable sharing her feelings because you are great at holding space for the worst of people while remembering their best. She doesn’t have to hid any emotions in fear that someone will use it against her. You are able to do this because you’ve learned how to do it for yourself.
It leads to the question, how can we bring about an emotionally acceptable culture without losing our positive mentality?
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Allow the Not So Good Feelings
It’s one thing to hold space for other’s difficult emotions. You totally can do that right? But let’s get real it’s much harder to do for ourselves.
When the Inner Critic Reigns
Have you ever been highly attuned to where you are falling short, things you need to heal, fix, or let go of? You’re a conscious person and you want to leave the world a better place. So you keep yourself on track. It’s admirable what the voices within us can assist with. Though, when they go over board, when they begin to employ nasty tactics to get you in shape, they cause more harm than good. What I’m talking about here is our inner critic that judges, critiques, or shames us for some perceived lack or negative emotion with the goal of bettering us.
First off, seeing something we don’t like in our lives or something that is getting in the way of our happiness is a step toward healing and change. We have identified it, however unclear it is (i.e., unidentified sensations, moods, images).
Then the emotions that come with the symptom—guilt, embarrassment, sadness, grief—are natural. They are part of the full human spectrum. When we allow ourselves to be in them, really feel them in our bodies, they can transform; they can show us something about our lives. The key is to allow them space without bringing in that inner critic. We’ll dive into this further.
When Self-Critique Snow Balls Into A Depressive State
When the inner critic comes in it adds another layer of suffering. In The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, Mark Manson names this phenomenon as the feedback loop from hell. Instead of feeling an emotion and letting it go, we judge ourselves for having it. Then our judgement causes us to feel that emotion again and the cycle continues. Echkart Tolle also talks about this same thing when he reveals that the stories our minds make up about our emotions actually perpetuate the emotions.
The problem here is that we have so many subconscious cultural beliefs that tell us negative emotions are bad like anxiety, sadness, anger. Not only do we exclude certain emotions from sitting at the cool table, we exclude personal characteristics that are too much or not enough. We are constantly managing what is us by excluding what we perceive is not us—on an unconscious level—and that which we perceive as not us is denied.
How to Stay Positive When You Don’t Feel Like It
Having a positive attitude is important. How then do we stay positive without denying the prickly parts of life?
Hold Off On Making Meaning
Remember when we judge or shame ourselves for feeling something we are telling a story about its meaning. It’s not the actual emotions that are making us feel shitty. It is the meaning we make out of those emotions. Here’s some steps to stay with the emotions without being in the story:
1. Notice when uncomfortable emotions or stories arise.
2. Remember you are a strong, capable human being who has endured a lot.
3. Drop into your body and sense what is going on. Where do you feel the emotions? In your chest? In your forehead? In your shoulders? Gut? Thighs? What does it feel like? Throbbing? Heavy? Wobbly? Tense? Clenching?
4. Sit with the bodily sensation. What is it doing? Does it change?
Call Bullshit On Your Story
Changing the story around what is happening without denying it is key here. You have the power to tell a different story. You don’t have the power to control your emotions. Sorry it doesn’t work that way. Though, as you begin to come into a better relationship with them your overall health increases.
1. What story are you telling about your emotions? about your moods? about yourself?
2. Is this story really true?
3. Call bullshit on the story!
Give Yourself Compassion
We often can be our own worst enemy, attempting to get our butts into gear through authoritative measures, whether you think of this as harsh parenting or drill sergeant style motivation. Sometimes, YES, this is what we need. Other times, thinking of our delicate emotions as an innocent child, we need to show compassion for our feelings and thoughts. As we begin to lend compassionate and encouraging words to the part of ourselves that is hurting, we are improving our relationship with it without denying it.
Allow Complexity
The next step is to allow complexity: holding the shitty parts of living while knowing that life is way too precious to not love, hope, and enjoy. When we allow and experience complexity it builds character, humbling us to the core, and expands our resiliency in the face of uncertainty. It makes us better human beings, for we can allow others to be in uncomfortable emotions without making meaning out of it.
For example:
You can accept that something is not going right in your life while you see positive momentum overall.
You can feel proud of your accomplishment while you feel sad that others don’t have the same opportunities.
You can admit you treated someone poorly while remembering you value kindness.
You can talk about the good things going for yourself while grieving a loved one.
If you apply these four ways of staying positive what would they do for you in your life? How would you experience your emotions differently?
There’s something about devastation and tragedy that lights a fire in the soul. In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has uplifted our daily lives and placed us in a different reality, are things stirring and bubbling up in you? This is a great time to reflect: dig into your goals to see if they still ring true to your soul. By answering the questions in this post you will understand how to create goals with soul: accomplishments that are meaningful to you!
Death is a Catalyst for Change
Let’s talk about death. It’s an interesting time we are in; many people die every day from viruses, illnesses, and injuries. But a pandemic, one disease spread across the entire planet, shows us just how vulnerable we are as human beings. Sure, some of us (the healthy and the young) have a lower chance of getting it, but it doesn’t take away the fact that many have died and are dying from it. This shouldn’t be something to fear too much about. Death is something that happens in the world.
At some point, we all cease to exist. We all know this, but we don’t always feel it so close to home. I believe the awareness that we will die can propel us to live vivaciously! By this I mean, the awareness of death can jolt us out of a slumber to the realization that in order to live a life that is exciting, deep, and significant we must go after that which we desire.
Not only does physical death around us cause us to consider how we are living, but the very ending of a way of life does this too. Death can be a slow process or it can be quick, speaking both literally and metaphorically. Our old ways of existing are over. We can never go back, but we can honor what was and still is important to us and bring it into our daily actions now.
Aligning Outer Goals with Inner Desires
Before we get into some reflection questions, let’s look at what desire means. I do not mean superficial, fleeting pleasure: such as sex, food, or quick thrills. These are can be imagined as surface level desires that don’t actually fulfill the deep cravings we possess. Although, sex, food, and thrills can be infused with deep meaning where they do fulfill deeper desires (i.e., making love with someone who is special to you where you let go and the chemistry between the two of you feeds your soul).
To have goals and desires in different areas of life (friendships, romantic relationships, self-care, health and fitness, hobbies, social activism, family, community, business/career, etc.) that truly fulfill us, not only something we check off, they have to connect to our deepest feelings and thoughts, not only our bodily sensations.
What stirs below the surface of who we say we are in the world, is a realm of thoughts, desires, feelings, memories, fantasies that all play into how we gain meaning throughout our life. To experience fulfillment in our lives, our actions have to connect with what we think and feel is meaningful. It is a meeting of inner and outer realms, an alignment of external goals with internal desires that provides a sense of fulfillment and a feeling of being alive.
For example, one can gain pleasure from driving in a car with their hand out the window, because of what that act means to them. Possibly, it is the love for the feeling of freedom. Maybe it reminds them of a special memory or a person that was important to them. The simple act of riding down a road with a hand out the window could give so much pleasure due to many reasons, but it is the reason along with the action that truly fulfills the desire.
Getting to the Heart of What You Desire
You may be thinking, how do I know what I truly desire? Well, what lights you up? What little things bring you joy? What have you always wanted? What are you curious about? These questions will prime you for the following ones.
There lies within you a youthful spirit, one that intuits many possibilities for your life. This youthful side of you has an unquenched thirst for what life has to give. It is the part of you that day dreams. You can tap into this youthful spirit to gauge what is possible in your life. Now this youthful spirit needs a heavy motivator to bring what she envisions into reality. (I’m personifying–giving this quality of youthful pizzazz a pronoun). She needs motivation to go for it, to seize opportunities, to create a life she loves.
This motivation is death: whether that is the physical death of our life, an inevitable separation (i.e., divorce, job loss, a friend moves away), or an ending of some sort (growing up, moving to another city, changing careers, an old way of living is gone). Things change all the time. The opportunity to play, to love, to create with what you have right now will seize to exist at some point. The time to live is now, and it always exists with death.
How to Create Goals with Soul
I want you to pull out a piece of paper and write down the answers to these questions. Doing the work is important if you want to discover your deeply felt goals!
1. If you knew you were going to die what would you want to DO with your remaining time?
What would you want to EXPERIENCE? What would you want to SAY? What would you want to FEEL?
2. WHAT are your current goals? How long have you been carrying these goals?
And go a step further…
3. WHY do you want to complete these goals? Are they avenues for you to experience what you wrote down in question 1?
This is such an essential question. If you want to have a life that is meaningful to you, you must ask these questions of yourself. So often, we don’t stop to ask why we want something. We just think it will bring me happiness. But will it really?
I’m gonna give you a hard truth: nothing will bring you happiness unless it aligns with what you deeply desire. That is, you will never experience happiness, if your goal is not meaningful to you in one way or another. For example, a goal could be to complete a 5k run. You will not feel happy during or after completing it if health and fitness is not a deeply held value. Now, if health is important to you because it means you get to live longer and enjoy more time here on Earth, or if being fit enough to complete a 5k means you have overcome something great (obesity, depression, or simply stagnation) then the small successes leading up to the big completion will be inherently enjoyable. The goal is not merely something to check off. It is important to YOU. So spend some time with this question!
Okay now that you have some stuff to work with…
4. HOW can I incorporate the desires from question 1 into my life? What goals can I create that will allow me to experience what I desire?
Bonus Question: What gets in the way of fulfilling these desires?
This is an important question. Dreaming and hoping and writing it down only brings your desires into your awareness. It is an essential first step. The next one involves taking another step toward it. This is where we often get stuck. We may take the first few steps, but find ourselves overwhelmed, disappointed, or just pulled back to where we put our attention before. It can be damn hard to move toward a great life, especially if you have been beaten down by life. But, it can be done! You just have to work with what comes up in the way of what you envision for your life. It could be calling you in a different direction or something needs to be transformed. What comes up or what blocks your desires can often be just as significant in the process of achieving goals than the accomplishments themselves.
Example:
Let’s use the same example of completing a 5k run. Let’s say you start off doing good. You are running for 2 weeks, every other day, slowly increasing distance. But then you have an awful fight with your boyfriend and you miss a day. The next day you are upset and get consumed in fixing what caused you to fight. After 4 days, you realize you haven’t ran and hold some resentment toward your boyfriend. The next day, you fight again and you cannot be fully present with what he says because you are holding resentment. Now, he is to blame for your inactivity and your relationship is none the better.
In this simplified example, the desire to complete a 5k (for whatever reason) is consumed by the energy that is poured into the relationship. Instead of saying, the relationship gets in the way of your fitness, the hinderance is more likely holding resentment toward a partner and not taking responsibility for your goals (maybe not taking responsibility for your part in the fight also). What get’s in the way is the festering of thoughts not spoken, giving one’s power away to someone else, and not having enough energy focused into the desire behind completing a 5k.
So to complete a 5k, you would have to work on taking responsibility for your energy and your focus, while also verbalizing this to your partner so they understand why you weren’t fully listening. By verbalizing what is happening for you, while recognizing that your fight wasn’t truly what prevented you from running you clear the air, so you can better listen to him and redirect some energy to the desire behind why you want to complete a 5k.
Allowing Complexity & Being Flexible
As you may see in this example, many different components can be wrapped up in the goals in our lives. If you have a large goal, one that is quite far from where you currently are, you have to be willing to allow the details to change, while holding on to your reason for going for your goal. Challenges will come up requiring you to shift how you go about your goal which may change your final outcome, but doesn’t always change the reason, the why behind your goal. This is why getting to heart of your goals is so important: the reasons are the fuel that sustains the long, unknown, challenging road ahead. This is creating goals with soul.
Hope you have aha moments and clarity visits, Kristina
“What’s the meaning of life?” is a question so many of us ask. We feel a void—something’s missing. Unable to outrun it or fill it with fluff, we are left with devouring fear. Searching for it across the sea, we ravage other’s traditions in the hope of finding what is within lacking. Often we get a glimpse of meaning in another’s words, in another’s way of existing and we sense it’s significance. We claim it, wear it as armor. “It is the truth,” we proclaim! We idealize it, preach it, defend it—only for it to eventually crumble.
Making meaning is a balancing act between becoming aware of life’s mysteries and releasing them, allowing the mixture to transform without intellectually gripping on. It is a practice and a perspective, rather than a specific idea that will save us. It is a way of existing that observes that which is presenting itself to us—whether this is an idea or a powerful force or presence—with reverence and respect.
When we do this, we allow it to be as it is without logically mutilating it. The mystery of its essence can stay alive, renewing its continuous meaning-making ability. This reminds me of relationships—often we want to find the meaning of why we love someone or why it didn’t work out. But you see, when we attempt to pinpoint that essence we miss it entirely, for meaning is not found intellectually. It is experienced. It transforms us, leaving the physical evidence behind.
Definitions
If we merely observe the words making vs. finding we can see the distinction I’m conveying.
Making: the act or process of forming, causing, doing, or coming into being.
Finding: the act of one that finds : to attain or reach; to come upon by searching or effort; to gain or regain the use or power of.
To find meaning would be to grasp it entirely, killing its mystery. To make meaning insinuates an act or process of creation, of bringing forth a sliver of meaning into our experience.
Religious/ Spiritual Instinct
As you may have picked up, there are a lot of religious words used to describe this process. First, this is due to what Depth Psychology would call human’s religious/ spiritual instinct. We have an instinct to believe in a power or powers greater than ourselves. Second, I purposely use these words because we can see how we latch onto certain spiritual ideals and psychological insights like they are religious dogmas to understand and give meaning in our lives.
Experiencing Meaning
How would replacing this single word-finding, with the word-making, change how you experience meaning in your life?
If we stopped digging for the sake of bringing it up to the surface to hold it out and show the world but instead approached the mysteries with a reverent eye and a collaborative hand so as to be a part of the meaning-making process, would it change us at our core?
I’ve experienced this in my own life. A piece of art, a poetic verse within a book, a speech that rings with truth moves me. I then think I have found what meaning is, but as I try to explain it, I kill it. Of course, this isn’t all the time. The art form of speech and words can be a magical way to communicate meaning. It’s one of the fundamental ways we create and build things of importance in our society. But it is when I obsessively grip it, when I claim it as truth that it begins to crumble and I feel that hole again.
When I approach life through the perspective of making meaning, I become an active participant on this journey we call life. I collaborate with other people, nature, the animals, spirit, and archetypal forces to bring meaning into existence.
When we make meaning we engage with all aspects of our being, and through this, we experience the divine in real life, not just in our heads.
Most of us, in our perfection-obsessed society, do not share how we struggle. We dust ourselves off, clean up the scene, and share the end result — leaving the sweat and tears in the shadow. Whether we don’t want to be perceived as weak or we just don’t want to share the process, we are limiting our vulnerability, reducing our chance for real connection, and modeling to the world that true struggle is something to be ashamed of.
When we then face a struggle in our lives — the experience of hitting up against obstacles or difficulties and going through the pain inherent in growing — we think something is wrong with us. No one mentions that shit is hard; they just brag about their accomplishments and present the final result. Of course, this isn’t everyone, and it could not even be one’s intention, never the less, the systems present this phenomenon.
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The Struggle Is Real
We struggle for many reasons, and all of us struggle. That is if we are living – adapting, loving, and growing. I am particularly grateful for the occurrence of struggle. It not only keeps life interesting, but it also stretches our capabilities, expands possibilities, and gives us confidence in our resiliency.
Struggle to Survive
Let’s be real here for a moment. We live in hard times – the systems in our culture make it difficult for many people to escape the constant struggle of merely surviving. Sometimes it can feel like the world is against us, and we are pushing up against a large rock on a hill. This struggle has to do with money, working, and supporting ourselves and our families. This form has to do with external struggle. It’s like Drake’s song, “Started from the bottom now we here….” Our society doesn’t talk about the internal struggle as much, so let’s get into what that looks like.
Struggle to Grow Up & Down
There is going to be struggle as we learn how to be in the social world. Growing up is hard. It requires one to change often in order to adapt to one’s surrounding. From this explanation, we can see how people grow up differently because they live in different areas of the world, in different circumstances, and in different environments.
I conceive character growth as growing down where one becomes more wise, humble, kind, etc. This also is connected with the struggle mentioned below – to be ourselves.
Struggle to Heal
Many of us come from dysfunctional families to varying degrees. No family is the same, but it seems each one has its issues. There is going to be struggle as we heal not only our wounds but our parent’s wounds and our culture’s.
“Children live the unconscious problems of their parents, and there is no avoiding this, regardless of good intentions….”
Edward Whitmont
Struggle To Be Ourselves
Every day we approach edges where we learn more about ourselves and what is needed for our growth toward who we are here to be. It is a growth of character, of meaning, of purpose. It is a journey of finding which edges we want to converge around and which ones we want to surpass.
We are raised into a family, into a community, and into a culture that have all these ideas and thoughts about who we should be and what we should do. Duhh, there is going to be struggle as we differentiate ourselves from this concoction.
When parts of our identity stretch to the point of ripping, and we are left to put the pieces back together, this leaves us wobbling with fear and uncertainty. Whether this is done intentionally or involuntarily, we fall over the edge into a space we cannot foresee.
Within the internal struggle, we must not hold too tightly for we are a passenger on this flight, and there are many other factors involved in determining where we go. I’m not saying to let go entirely, sometimes you have to fight over who has the wheel, but if you are surviving, you can afford to loosen your grip. The struggle to be ourselves inevitably is wrapped up with experiencing a higher power.
The idea of struggle I’m using here denotes that space right before suffering. We could describe it as one facet of suffering. If we do not allow conflict within ourselves or we insist on a particular way that isn’t working, there is the chance of suffering. Suffering seems to be a constant or chronic struggle where the circumstance calls for deepening the pain experience. Struggling and suffering are vital to our growth.
“I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering – but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.”
James Baldwin
Now sometimes there is just nothing we could have done differently to prevent suffering. Maybe it is an external reality that you were placed in a shitty body, or a shitty family, or a shitty country. Maybe your “purpose” or “who you are meant to be” requires you to suffer. Whatever the reason is, it’s beside the point. We all suffer and must suffer from time to time.
It is suffering that provides enough pressure to facilitate the adaptation needed toward both our external life and our inner world. By this I mean, sometimes in order for us to change we need to suffer deeply. Often, this is what wakes up to our deeper callings and meaningful truths.
Embrace It For Vitality
For healthy living, one must embrace the struggle. It is your friend, truly, even if it is disguised as a villain, monster, or devastation. It will make you a better person, a stronger person. When we do not allow it, at least slightly, we risk deeper suffering. We risk not growing and not adapting to our circumstances.
In our western society, we don’t always strive for a healthy life. Okay, well we do, but the way we think and attempt to get there leads to more problems. The pursuit of happiness, the American dream, Positive Psychology, and even the Law of Attraction have really fucked a lot of us up in many ways. I couldn’t possibly get into all them here, but we will touch on them. Of course, the overall ideas inherent to these have validity and purpose.
For instance, happiness is apart of life and should be a pursuit. It gets mucky when we believe our happiness is more important than our struggles. When we bury our relationship problems, our insecurities, our weird desires in the name of happiness, we are setting ourselves up for disruption, for our lives do not revolve around a steady stream of happiness. Buried shit doesn’t stay there for long — it erupts as, what psychologists call, a neurosis. This is due to the balancing act that occurs within our overall psyche (the equilibrium dynamic between the conscious ego and the unconscious).
The fact is everyone who is on the pursuit for happiness is struggling. Why is this? Well, we are not happy all the time; happiness is a particular mood, in which there are many of them. So we struggle to continue that pursuit. We can replace happiness with many things, for example, sexual satisfaction, success, or belonging. As we insist on a particular desire, object, or goal, we unknowingly create struggle.
When we deny, avoid, or repress struggle, we create another layer of suffering.
But when we face it, explore it, and observe why it is we are struggling we can learn how to overcome it. Sometimes overcoming it means learning that the path you’re on is not the path for you. With the example above on the pursuit of happiness, we may realize that happiness is not a sufficient or adequate goal. Such irony. When we embrace the struggle, we dissolve it, allowing the possibility for a deeper meaning.
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
Philosopher Kahlil Gibran
Through the trial of untangling our suffering, we surrender to what is, whether that is external circumstances or inner characteristics. We learn something about ourselves and awaken to our deepest truths.
If you haven’t watched American Gods yet, go do so! It not only is seeping with wisdom, but the drama and characters will make you ache to be in their world. It is filled with stories that will make you think deeper about your life and laugh your ass off. It is hard to begin explaining all the layers that reside throughout the episodes. We could get into archetypes. We could discuss the magic Shadow Moon encounters and resists to be true. The predominant theme though is about the Gods and Goddesses that humans worship.
Gods & Goddesses In American Gods
Now Gods are not merely just God-like figures from religions we worship. Nope, as you begin to see throughout the show anything we worship and give value to is a God.
The new Gods are animations of things like corporations, technology, pop culture, and media, who seduce us in various ways. We give much value to them in our day to day lives, and by giving them value, we give them power – to influence and control our days.
The old gods vary widely. In pre-Christian times there are Gods and Goddess that control nature, bring luck into our lives, and play trickster roles. Some old Gods are connected with religions — the Jesuses, Moseses, Hindu Gods, etc. As we see in American Gods, there are even old Gods we now worship differently because we have created holidays like Easter and Christmas. Easter was when Jesus was resurrected, yes, but how many people celebrate it today with easter eggs and bunny rabbits? These are derived from pagan rituals that worshiped the Goddess Ostara who is the incarnation of spring and rebirth.
By believing something has value, we give it power in our lives. We animate its force—bringing it to life. Thinking of Gods this way can make you question what came first – the Gods or people believing in the Gods?
It is all quite ironic because in modern society we don’t believe much in magic. We like to think rationality and science are far on the other side of the spectrum from magic. But the power we give to modern things like technology and media in our lives, do they not in a way work their own magic? The definition of magic from Google is “the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.” If you don’t think technology, money or media influences your life, you are in denial!
So magic does exist
I believe this show is relevant today because the main plot of a war between the old Gods and the new Gods is symbolic for the war on meaning. The old Gods provided meaning in our everyday lives. The new ones merely distract us, at least this is what Mr. Wednesday (the old wise God) believes in the show…
I don’t think the point is who will win?
The point is for each of us to see how we all want meaning, that we all want to be relevant and to begin the discussion on how our Gods and Goddesses can become allies.
This makes me think of the two scientific and social theories that often bump up against each other: Cooperation vs. Competition
5 Life Lessons From The Show American Gods
“The world is either crazy, or you are. They’re both solid options, take your pick.” Wednesday said this in one of the early episodes of season 1. I love it because it teaches us something so essential. We will be able to find reasons to support any belief, might as well choose a belief that will sustain and assist us!
“There are bigger sacrifices one may be asked to make than going a little mad.” Wednesday is always dropping wisdom (I did some research and found out he is the God of Wisdom and War). When we are “going mad” it really is just us breaking out of a structure of beliefs. Our grounding, core beliefs we have about the world begin to cave in. When this happens we don’t really know how we relate to the world, we kind of lose it. BUT… There are bigger sacrifices than keeping our cool (maintaining our sense of control in a set pattern of beliefs). The world does not revolve around us and what we believe to be true about it.
Your life only has meaning, if you believe it does. We can see, through the character Laura Moon (Shadow’s wife), that believing there is no meaning in life creates a dull and meaningless life. She doesn’t believe in God, even though she was raised reading scriptures and attending church. She didn’t even really believe in love, causing her to find no comfort or contentment in her relationship with Shadow. Then she is brought back to life, with the help of a lucky coin. She now believes Shadow is her shining star, giving her hope and something to hold onto.
The terrible things that happen to us are not necessarily “bad.” In modern culture in America, we strive to eradicate all negativity and “bad” things out of our life. Honestly, this just puts us in denial, because we can’t possibly eradicate all of it and who is the one saying it is bad anyway? Often times it is through terrible suffering that our lives have meaning. Instead of “fixing” things, move through them.
You are what you worship. What you believe is valuable and what you think is true defines how you see yourself and the world, and this determines how you live your life.
I leave you with the question,
What do you want to give power to in your life and what would shift if you believed it was powerful?
