How Important Is It To Train Yourself To Feel Good When You're Feeling Bad?

Have you ever stopped and thought about how amazing life is for us? 

Have you ever wondered, if time travel existed, and someone from 1920 or even 1980 came forward to our time, how wide-eyed and amazed they would be at what we have available to us, what we can do and how we live? 

The shopping center's, the internet, the phones, the size of the home TV, the endless variety of food in the grocery store, food courts and take-away restaurants, the cars we drive, the movies we watch, and in general, the affluent lifestyles we live.

How different is the life you’re actually living now to the life you were capable of even imagining you would be living when you in your teens? 

We really do live in the most amazing times in all of history! 

Which all begs the question “What in, or about, your life do you love the most?” 

WHEN THINGS GO AWRY?

We all experience difficult times in our life, all kinds of hurdles that we have to train ourselves how to jump over and teach ourselves how pick ourselves up time and time again until we successfully make it across. 

Our greatest barrier to getting across those hurdles are our emotions.

Our greatest source of pain is that we can’t handle our emotions.

So those times can really ramp up any unhealthy coping strategies we have developed over our life, especially our coping strategies of eating and drinking in a bid to soothe ourselves. 

A key element to getting across any of those hurdles without adding stress to our already overburdened systems through poor food and beverage choices is having emotional stability. 

There is an abundance of life buzzing all around you and there is so much to be amazed and enchanted by in our daily, day to day life. 

But when troubles come, when were faced with a hurdle, we develop tunnel vision and everything else in life, everything that is delightful and wondrous, is tuned out or coloured grey by the way the human mind works. 

BRINGING THE COLOUR BACK IN

When you feel a wave of sadness, hurt, anger, frustration or any intense emotion start to surge, remember to take a breath, look around and move your focus to something beautiful, funny, or simply remarkable;

• The sun coming up every day
• The endless abundance of nature everywhere
• The delight and mystical flight of birds
• The aroma’s in the air
• The sky, whatever colour it is

 It really is easy to find things to be joyful about. 

Life is beautiful and alive with vitality, even when feels like it’s not. 

The key to getting over those hurdles is counter intuitive though. 

Instead of having all your focus on the hurdle, you need to be able to turn your focus away from the hurdle and the emotions and thoughts that have you mesmerised and purposefully turn your focus to something that’s more pleasing and uplifting. 

And it’s easier than you think. 

It’s not about dismissing or pretending that the things that are happening in your life, aren’t. 

It’s about in that moment;

• choosing to be joyful
• choosingto be happy
• choosing appreciation
• choosingfascination
• choosingto be in awe of the life we live every day in every way

When you have a thought or an emotion that threatens to carry you away with it, or even succeeds in doing so, in that moment, you have to take your own hand and lead yourself mentally and sometimes physically if necessary, to look for and find something joyful around you, something that will allow you to smile. 

By doing this, you're training your mind to be able to hold opposing thoughts and emotions at the same time and that it’s ok to reach for happiness in tough times, in times of grief, in times of turmoil and that it’s possible to be happy even when things aren’t as you want them to be. 

DOG WITH A BONE

You have to keep doing that over and over and over again because the human brain, when faced with hurdles to jump, is like a dog with a bone, it keeps returning to it over and over and over again. No matter how much you distract it, it never really takes its paw off it and the moment you let your guard down, it’s back chewing on it. 

But stress doesn't have to lead to anxiety, anger, frustration or feeling powerless and memories of people we have loved and lost does not have to lead to feeling sad or lonely, there are other options, you just have to be willing to train yourself to look for them. 

Finding ways to be happy is easier than you think….once you decide that’s how you want to feel, you know it’s time to take action.