On Saturday I received this email from a lovely, tortured soul:
Linda,
Thank you for your recent email about “National Psychotherapy Day.” I appreciate all the resources provided, but my question is this: Why do I still struggle with happiness on some days? I have been to therapy (years ago), I have read personal development books and blogs, but all this work is still not enough. I’m a good person, I practice positive psychology, but my anxiety and stress creeps in despite an active vinyasa yoga practice, clean living and “making sleep a priority” (to quote you!). Any advice for what’s missing? Are some people programmed or fated to be less happy?
Thank you in advance for your helpful guidance.
Stressed and too-often depressed,
Vanessa
To Vanessa and intrepid wellness warriors everywhere — green juice, hot yoga, therapy, solid sleep hygiene, gratitude letters, and too many therapy hours to count, will not make you immune to stress, depression and anxiety. For the simple reason that life includes suffering — mental anguish, broken hearts, illness, and random acts of brutal.
Psychological insight will not stop the bad things in life from happening. Natural disasters will occur, innocent kids will be victimized by sociopaths, and awful people will continue to wreak their awful havoc when the opportunity strikes.
The thing about life is life is not controllable. You can combine kale, cucumbers and carrots until the wellness cows come home, but you will still wake up with a nasty cold on some days. You could have 50-minutes with Freud’s apprentice, but there’s still no out-counseling the toxic and devastating effects of a narcissist ex. And all the downward dogs on the planet will never reset the negative number into a positive amount in your bank account.
But…you can weather all these storms with grace, courage and hustle. Because what other choice is there?
When the going gets rough, you can reflect on that positive psychology exercise, or that blog post that got you through that bad two weeks, post-divorce. You can still smile at random strangers, rescue innocent dogs off the streets, and breathe deeply because, no matter the ill, slow, deep-breathing makes everything more tolerable. You keep doing the good wellness work because it builds psychological muscles. Doing 30-60 minutes per day of uncomfortable now is better than feeling uncomfortable for the rest of your life.
You put in the toil because life is mostly beautiful. So keep rocking your positive attitude, your kaled-out homemade pesto, and your Warrior 2 poses.
Psychological practices won’t make you impervious to cancer, karma or cruel circumstances. But they will make you stress-hearty. And being stress-hearty means reducing the likelihood that the emotional effects of anxiety and depression will negatively trigger chemical reactions in your body. Because when your body is stressed, you risk increased inflammation and a weakened immune system.
So handle the issues, illnesses, untimely events and random and intentional jerks. Because that’s what emotionally evolved people do. In your darkest days, remember that your track record for overcoming problems is 100%. Remind yourself that you are not broken, ill-fated, or damned. You are a human being and you’re not throwing in the towel.
Life doesn’t get easier. But you get stronger.
Tomorrow may be better, or it may still suck. But…sooner, rather than later, life will be luminous again. It always is. So work your psychological insight, your inspirational Instagram images, and your green this, that and the other, all the way to the holistic high road.
And while reveling in all this human spirituality and deep psychological work — remember, if your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. Now give yourself a big-ass hug. Self-compassion heals.
Namaste.
~Linda
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