A key to choosing and manifesting happiness in our lives is to embrace the suck. True story. Scientific research shows how we process negative emotions is instrumental when it comes to determining how happy we are. People who mindfully accept the 12 negative emotions, like sadness, loneliness, hopelessness, shame, and guilt, end up becoming more joyful than those who don’t. Why is that though? Think of it this way: Imagine your emotion is an energetic little kid. When a kid has energy to burn, what do you do? You let them go play outside and burn the energy off, because if you don’t they’ll drive you crazy and never go to sleep. Our emotions are energy, which means if we don’t process them, if we don’t FEEL them, if we don’t go THROUGH them, they get trapped inside of us and cause havoc, like an energetic kid in a small house.
This brings me to something brilliant I learned from comedian, actor, and writer Pete Holmes. When a story, emotion, habit, etc. starts to play out in our mind and body, instead of identifying with it or ignoring it, as we tend to do, what if we decide to step back and watch it like it’s a favorite movie or TV show? The thing is, while you HAVE feelings and thoughts, you are NOT your feelings and thoughts, because YOU can step back and observe them like a third party. For instance, when you do something that leads to shame: Notice the shame, step back, smile at the shame, feel it, get curious as to where it comes from, and move through it.
The juice in all this is: Opening yourself up to ALL your feelings will bring MORE joy and bliss. So, today I invite you to embrace the “suck” in order to welcome and receive more happiness.
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Grace and peace,
Lang
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