How to Feel Better

Stop waiting for your life to change before you explore how you feel.

By Brooke Hicks

What do you really want?

You might say a different job. A relationship. More money. A goal you’ve been working toward for years.

Now ask yourself one more question: How do you think you’ll feel when you have it?

Happy? At peace? Proud? Excited?

That answer is worth paying attention to. So often, we’re pursuing something outside of us because of the feeling we believe it will give us.

What are you waiting to feel?

For years, I believed being thin would make me happy.

I wanted it so badly that when I asked myself whether I would rather be thin or happy, I had to stop and think.

That question helped me see what I had connected in my mind. I wasn’t just wanting a different body. I was expecting a different emotional life.

But I had experienced being thinner without finding the happiness I thought was supposed to come with it.

Try this with a goal of your own: What will be different when you achieve it? And what will be exactly the same?

This isn’t a reason to abandon the goal. It’s an opportunity to understand what you’re asking that goal to do for you.

Look at the thought behind the feeling

In the Self Coaching Model, we examine the relationship between what we think and how we feel.

Consider someone who believes they’ve won the lottery. They can feel excited before any money arrives. Their thinking about what the money means is already creating an emotional experience.

That’s the relationship I want you to start noticing in your own life.

When you feel discouraged, what sentence is running through your mind? When you feel proud, what are you thinking about yourself?

Write those sentences down. Get specific. “I’m thinking negatively” won’t show you as much as the actual thought you’re believing.

Then, when you want to practice a different feeling, ask what thought could support it.

You have to believe that thought. Repeating an affirmation that feels completely untrue isn’t the same as changing your thinking.

Look for something honest that you can work with.

Feeling better doesn’t mean being happy all the time

There are times when I want to feel sad. There are experiences I want to grieve. Sometimes I want to feel peaceful, and sometimes I want to feel excited.

A full life includes different emotions.

Learning about your feelings also means learning to experience the uncomfortable ones. Notice what an emotion feels like in your body. Describe it. Practice allowing it without immediately trying to escape it.

When you become more willing to feel discomfort, you can become more willing to do the things you’ve been avoiding because of how you might feel.

You don’t have to make happiness another standard you’re failing to meet.

Choose three feelings to practice

Start by naming the three feelings you experience most often. Be honest. This is information, not a report card.

For each one, write down the thoughts that tend to go with it.

Then choose three feelings you would like to experience more often. One of mine is feeling proud of myself. I like having my own back and recognizing what I’ve done.

To practice that feeling, I can think about an accomplishment or the ways I care for myself and other people.

For each feeling you choose, ask:

• What does this emotion feel like in my body?
• What would I be thinking if I felt this way?
• Which of those thoughts can I actually believe today?

Return to those thoughts and notice what happens. This is a practice, not a demand for an instant emotional change.

What feeling have you been waiting for—and what thought could help you begin practicing it now?