What to Do If You Feel Awful

Practical advice for times of great destruction

Mount Kailash - Kenro Izu

Pretty much everyone I know feels awful right now. We’re often exhausted, sad, overwhelmed, heavy, angry, or scared.

Here in the U.S., our comforting narratives are being revealed for the self-serving nonsense they always were. Empire is crumbling. Hard-won human rights and people’s livelihoods are on the chopping block.

Globally, we face existential threats on multiple fronts.

What Not to Do

Do not blame yourself. Feeling awful is an appropriate response.

The very governments, cultures, and systems that have brought us to this point in history have also trained us to interpret everything we feel as a personal psychological problem or personal failure. How convenient!

Anxious? There’s a diagnosis code for that! Got laid off and feeling scared? You’re a loser. Feeling like there’s no future and humans suck? Pure chemistry. Go to the gym and boost your endorphins.

The more we blame ourselves and try to find individual solutions, the less likely we are to gain that dangerous clarity about what’s actually being done to us.

If you are hurting right now, it’s not a personal failure. This is a collective circumstance brought about by abusive systems of power. Feeling awful at times is what caring, sentient beings appropriately do when things are. . . awful.

Do not isolate.

You may feel like holing up and shutting down. We are often less likely to reach out to friends, family, and our communities when we feel badly.

But all the latest research tells us that community is the medicine for depression, feelings of insufficiency, fear, hopelessness, and even addiction.

Turns out that “self-care” is not primarily about doing something alone.

So why don’t we reach out instead of curling up into a literal or metaphorical fetal crouch?

We don’t reach out because, in addition to being trained to blame ourselves for everything, we have also been trained to feel ashamed of our own sorrow.

When we feel ashamed, we want to hide.

When we hide, we are not joining together to change what is actually causing our distress.

Cha ching. The billionaire thugs keep making money and destroying our world at everyone’s expense.

What to Do

Just as we have a digestive capacity for food, we also have a digestive capacity for life at large.

Right now, there is a lot of rotten “food” to digest!

Counterbalance the rotten food with beautiful, nourishing food.

• Buy and prepare the most beautiful meals you can afford. Make your meals a feast for the eyes and all of your senses.

• Eat with others as much as possible. Organize family and community meals. Eat lovely food with love all around you.

• Beautify your living space. Splurge on flowers or those new curtains you have your eye on. Or invite some friends over and do a deep clean. It’s important to make your space a beautiful sanctuary, not just a comforting one.

• Communicate with others who share your feelings and your values. Communicate offline and on. Get in the conversation!

• Invite folks over to watch a movie. Organize outings to a botanical garden, concert, or art show. Get together and just talk about what you are experiencing. Reach out. Reach out. Reach out.

• Get creative. Join with others to dance, sing, paint, make things, cook, or stitch.

• If you live alone, consider convening a group of friends to move in together.

• Get closer to animals. Adopt a cat. Feed crows. Participate in animal rescue efforts. Sign up to walk dogs or pet sit. Humans aren’t the only sources of friendship and love here.

• Take positive action with others. Join a protest. Do group letter-writing to your elected officials. Make a group donation to your favorite cause. Join or organize community resilience events or orchestrate opportunities to get to know your neighbors.

• Practice random acts of beauty and alliance. Talk to strangers. Help someone carry a heavy package. Talk to the person pumping your gas or using self-serve at the next pump over. Hug a sad person.

• Beautify and people-a-fy your life!

God is. . .

In my spiritual tradition, God is the artist, the enjoyer of the creation, and the essence of the great intimacy of all of life.

When we create, enjoy beauty, and reach for greater intimacy, we are being more aligned with the enlightened Self. This is the medicine.

In our ordinary lives, we have powerful means to remind ourselves of who we really are. When we do so, we become more powerful.

Then together, we will bring about real change for us all.

with infinite love,
Shambhavi

Not quite ready to fire up a paid subscription, but want to show your appreciation?

Please join Shambhavi and the Jaya Kula community for satsang & kirtan every Sunday at 3:00pm Pacific. Come in person to 1215 SE 8th Ave, Portland, OR, or join Jaya Kula’s newsletter on Substack to get the Zoom link for satsang. You can also listen to my podcast—Satsang with Shambhavi—wherever podcasts are found.