Posts Tagged: feeling good

“Getting Over the Attachment to Feeling Good”

On September 2, 2022 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“It’s strange how I know that discomfort and suffering always passes, but when I’m in it, it really feels like all that exists and ever will exist is discomfort. I need to work on my attachment to feeling good. It’s dangerous for me. But everything passes, and I think the real “goal” is to just accept it all. Don’t wait. Turn away nothing. Welcome it all.” (Anonymous 12-step friend. Used with permission.)

We are probably created to feel good. There’s nothing wrong with that desire—except when there is. Like all desires, the desire to feel good can overflow its banks, and become a raging river that sweeps away everything in its path. Eventually, our desire to feel good can destroy us.

The word “attachment” is crucial in my 12-step friend’s sentence, “I need to work on my attachment to feeling good.” Feeling the desire to feel good—and actually feeling good—are not the problem. The attachment is. My problem is that I get attached to feeling good like a fly gets attached to a spider’s web. Eventually, the desire to feel good drains the very life blood out of all my goals and dreams, my values and good judgment.

So, what is to be done here? Should I just feel a low-grade depression in order to avoid the spider’s web? No, that is another web that I don’t want to get enmeshed in. So, what do I do??

What works for me (when I actually do it) is to feel what I feel. Feelings are like small children. They need positive, loving attention. But also, like little children, feelings change very rapidly. Feelings have feelings too, you know. If my feelings feel felt and seen and heard, they will be okay. And then, I need to let them go and run along.

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