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It seems like we’re all under pressure to be happy all the time.
Think about it: When you have a day where you feel unusually off and especially unmotivated, your instinct may be to ask yourself “Am I unfulfilled?” or “Is my job the problem?” or “Am I doing enough with my life?” Usually what that does is turn your bad mood into one that’s even worse.
We seem to have learned to treat every single low in our mood as a red flag that needs to be addressed right away. But if you’re doing an audit of your life every time you feel a little bit grumpy, that’s exhausting.
To free ourselves from all of this overthinking, we need to take a gentler approach. In many ways, emotions are like water: They are constantly flowing, and they don’t always carry a deep hidden message. In other words, it's OK to experience them without taking them very seriously.
According to Sol TV creator Yemane, control is kind of an illusion, and transformative things happen when you finally give your feelings the space to run wild and flow. After all, we're just vessels and emotions are passing through us.
Instead of trying to fix every feeling, here are two different ways to handle them:
1) Expand Your Emotional Experience
Many of us tend to believe that if we’re not happy, calm, or productive, we are failing in life. However, expecting to experience good emotions all the time is unrealistic.
What we’re meant to feel is everything that comes with living. Because of that, it’s normal to be a little melancholy, utterly bored, and extraordinarily frustrated.
As it turns out, many of the most resilient people aren’t always positive. They’re the ones who give themselves permission to try and experience the entire menu of feelings. When a negative one arrives, they don’t freak out because they know it’s just a small piece of the whole meal.
Research suggests that people who can feel a greater variety of emotions have better long term well-being. It’s not because they feel more positive, but because they are a little less threatened by the negative.
Emotional variety = emotional flexibility
Emotional flexibility → less fear of yourself
Just understanding that basic nature of emotions can bring in so much inner freedom.
Remember, your feelings are not the boss of the day! You can notice one and say, for example, “I feel really annoyed right now. So what?”
A feeling can be real without being in charge.
Shift your inner math from:
Big emotion = Big meaning
to
Big emotion → Small meaning
2) Drop the Heavy Emotions That No Longer Serve You
Sometimes, we find ourselves dealing with “heavier” feelings—things that are hard to shake, like feeling resentful towards an old friend, feeling guilty over something you did wrong three years ago, or anger about an unresolved issue.
There are times when we become stuck on an emotion because we subconsciously don’t want to allow ourselves to move on. We emotionally lock ourselves in (on some level) by falling victim to an emotional version of what in the business world is known as a “sunk cost fallacy.”
A sunk cost fallacy occurs when an individual continues to pour resources (money) into a failing product or venture due to the fact that he or she has already invested and lost so much. To walk away would mean they would have to admit they threw their time and money away on a bad investment, which is a painful truth to acknowledge.
The same thing can happen with emotional pain. Someone will hang on to past anger, for instance, because letting go of it would mean their ego has to accept that the last several years of being angry was a complete waste of time and energy. The emotional pattern of clinging to old anger becomes self-reinforcing.
Research shows that the brain will practice repeated emotional patterns regardless of whether those emotional patterns still provide value. It can seem easier to remain within what is comfortable, but just because something is familiar, that doesn’t make it meaningful.
When you keep repeating an old, painful story, it leads to rumination. You end up creating a go-to sequence of emotions, and form a habit of coming back to them every time you think about the old story. That's what keeps you constantly stuck.
Old story + Repetition = Rumination
Rumination → feeling stuck
To actually process these deep, chronic emotions, you have to be willing to write off your “losses.” You have to ask yourself what you actually lose if you drop the anger right now.
Do you lose your favorite excuse?
Do you lose your identity as the injured party in that specific story?
Give yourself permission to walk away from the bad investment.
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, emotional processing is not about achieving some perfect state of permanent zen. It’s really just about letting yourself be human.
It means accepting that your mind is going to serve up a messy, unpredictable mix of feelings, and realizing that is completely fine.
You are allowed to have a grumpy Tuesday without it meaning your entire life is off track. You are also allowed to put down the heavy stuff you have been carrying for years, simply because you are tired of holding it.
The goal is not to feel good all the time. The goal is to feel whatever comes up, decide how much energy you actually want to give it, and then keep living your life.
And maybe the quiet truth underneath all of this is that you were never meant to decode every emotion. You were meant to move through them, learn from a few, release most, and trust yourself with all of them.
When you stop trying to fix every single emotion, you realize something simple and grounding: You are not broken. You are just being human.
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Did today's newsletter resonate with you?
- 🦋🦋🦋 Yes, 100%! I really needed the reminder that my feelings are like water and I don't need to "fix" every bad mood.
- 🦋🦋 Parts of it clicked. The idea of an "emotional sunk cost fallacy" really got me thinking about what I might be holding onto.
- 🦋 Not quite there yet. It makes sense in theory, but I still find it really difficult to just drop my heavier, recurring emotions.