Episode 12: What to Do When You Feel Like Everything SUCKS

Transcript:

[00:00:01] I want to talk to you today about what happens when you are feeling sorry for yourself. I think it's important to acknowledge that sometimes life is just really hard. And sometimes you think to yourself, why is this happening to me? Like, why can't I just catch a break? Why must everything be falling apart right now? There is a cliche that says, "when it rains, it pours." And sometimes cliches are cliches because they are true.

So I want to talk to you a little bit about what it means when you are feeling really sorry for yourself and it might go something like this: Everything sucks. And I'm so tired of this. I just want to crawl into a hole and never come out. I want this to be over and there has to be some way to fix it. And then I should probably stay positive. I don't even know why I'm complaining because other people have a way worse than I do. And then you start envisioning starving children in the slums of India and people who are homeless on the streets here. And you might be thinking, you know, "people who have a different skin color than I do have it harder than I do." And, "people in different countries have it harder than I do. And I'm really privileged. And I should stop complaining."

[00:01:32] No matter where in the cycle you are (if you go through this cycle, which I know a lot of people who do), I have a few things to share with you. First off, it is OK to be fed up and wish that this was over. I am going to show you how to honor your feelings at some point in this podcast.

But first, I just want to say it is OK to have these feelings. It is OK to have a pity party. It is OK to feel like things suck because sometimes they just do.

Secondly, I want to say truly: somebody always has it worse than you do. We are privileged people. If you are listening to this, you are privileged to have technology to get online and listen to a podcast. We have a place to sleep that isn't a cardboard box. We are not in a slum. We have access to food when we need it, even if it's from a food bank.

And. And our feelings are still real and valid. Please do not compare yourself to other people because honest to God, it invalidates your experience and it takes away your right to your very real pain. It is OK to feel like everything sucks even when technically, some things do not suck.

And third, I just want to talk about the fact that i's OK to have a pity party as long as it doesn't last forever. I went to a healer right around my divorce and I basically was like, everything sucks and I'm sad and I just want this to be over. And why is everything so hard? And I really shouldn't be so upset because I don't live in a slum.

[00:03:26] And she said, "Dude, have your pity party, but don't let it last forever.

[00:03:36] "Get an accountability partner, whether it's your mom or your partner or your best friend, and say, I am going to feel sorry for myself.

[00:03:47] "I am going to sit on the couch with a blanket over my head and a pint of ice cream for the next hour.

[00:03:54] "And I need you to call me in one hour and tell me I am done."

And that is when you move forward and you make the decision to take action, but you do not do that during your pity party. My boyfriend's family has a five minute pity party. His mom apparently used to say to him, "you get five minutes to feel sorry for yourself and then it's over."

So no matter what your length of time is, just honor your feelings, honor the fact that you feel resentful and crappy and things suck. Don't let it last forever. But I know that it is OK to feel sorry for yourself sometimes, as long as you don't let it make you bitter and you don't let it bring you down forever.

I hope that has been helpful. You can use it for yourself. You can use it for your kids. And hopefully it will help you not feel guilty about feeling bad — because it's totally normal not to feel happy all the time, peeps.

[00:05:03] One last thing I want to say is that I'm planning to launch an online community to go with this podcast, and right now I'm I'm basically forming the community slowly. So if you're interested in joining a community on Facebook that's all about dealing with hard things and parenting through hard things, a safe space, I would love for you to get into the waitlist for it.

I've just created a private community on Facebook and when it launches, I will let everyone in. So if you're interested, I would love it if you would go to mightyandbright.com/community. It will forward you to the group and then you can request access to it. And then when I'm ready to launch it, I'll just approve everyone's membership.

If you're listening to this after it has been launched, I'm really excited to have you. I really believe strongly in talking with other people that are going through similar things — maybe not your exact brand of personal disaster, but there's things that hard times have in common. My hope is to be a place where parents can come and talk about, how to help their kids through it and also how to help themselves through it — and how to take a hard time and turn it into something positive. So if you're interested, go to mightyandbright.com/community and I will talk with you next week. Thank you for being here.

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