Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / why are you scared of being happy?

Transcript

why are you scared of being happy? · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

• 0:00
  When things start going well for you, it feels wrong.
• 0:05
  You finally get into a good relationship, your mental health
• 0:08
  is actually stable, or work is going well and instead of just
• 0:12
  enjoying it, there's a voice in the back of your head saying
• 0:15
  when is this going to fall apart?
• 0:19
  Or maybe you actively sabotage it.
• 0:21
  You pick a fight with somebody over nothing.
• 0:23
  You stop doing the things that were helping you create the
• 0:26
  chaos before life can do it for you.
• 0:29
  I've been there. I spent a lot of my healing
• 0:32
  journey being scared of healing, being afraid that I would lose a
• 0:36
  piece of myself, being afraid even when things were good, that
• 0:39
  everything would fall apart. My name is Ethan Jewell and
• 0:44
  welcome back to Feel Your Feelings.
• 0:48
  I want to talk about why we do this, why we have this feeling,
• 0:52
  this worry when everything's are going well, like something is
• 0:54
  wrong. Because it sucks to finally feel
• 0:57
  like you have things going right, yet everything feels
• 1:00
  wrong. If you're scared of being happy,
• 1:03
  it doesn't mean you're broken. It means there's a really
• 1:07
  scared, vulnerable, hurt piece of yourself that is protecting
• 1:11
  you in a way that doesn't serve you anymore.
• 1:13
  Today we're going to figure out why that happens, what it's
• 1:16
  costing you, and how we can start trusting the good things
• 1:20
  again. So first, where does this
• 1:22
  feeling come from? Well, if you grew up in chaos,
• 1:25
  your nervous system learned that chaos is normal, not good.
• 1:30
  You don't feel happy within chaos, but it's predictable.
• 1:33
  It's safe in a weird way. You knew how to navigate it.
• 1:36
  You knew the rules of that chaos, of that unpredictability.
• 1:40
  But happiness and stability, that's unfamiliar territory, and
• 1:44
  unfamiliar feels dangerous to a brain that's been in survival
• 1:48
  mode like yours. You've been just trying to get
• 1:51
  through every day, every week, every month, maybe for years and
• 1:55
  years at a time. So you have been surviving.
• 1:59
  You haven't allowed yourself to thrive as you're healing.
• 2:02
  When I first started therapy and things actually started to get
• 2:05
  better, I felt so uncomfortable. I didn't know who I was without
• 2:09
  all of the anxiety, without the drama, without something to fix
• 2:13
  or worry about. It was almost like standing in a
• 2:15
  quiet room after years of living right next to a highway.
• 2:19
  It felt out of place. The silence that I was finally
• 2:23
  experiencing almost felt louder than all of the chaos and mental
• 2:27
  illness that I had been battling on my own for years.
• 2:31
  You're finally doing OK, but you can't shake this feeling that
• 2:34
  you don't deserve it or that it won't last.
• 2:38
  So you keep 1 foot out of the door of your own life.
• 2:41
  You brace for impact that hasn't happened yet.
• 2:45
  You're waiting for something to go wrong because in your
• 2:47
  experience, it always does. And you're not crazy for feeling
• 2:51
  this way. Your brain is just trying to
• 2:53
  protect you based on old information.
• 2:56
  It thinks happiness is the calm before the storm.
• 2:59
  It thinks letting your guard down means getting hurt.
• 3:02
  So it keeps you in that state of waiting.
• 3:05
  Because waiting feels safer than hoping.
• 3:09
  There's this thing where if you've been through a lot,
• 3:12
  suffering can become part of your identity.
• 3:14
  Like, I'm the person who struggles.
• 3:16
  I'm the anxious one. I'm the one who's going through
• 3:19
  a hard time. And when you start healing,
• 3:21
  there's this weird grief that comes with it.
• 3:24
  Like, who am I if I'm not suffering?
• 3:26
  Will people still care about me if I'm not broken, if they don't
• 3:28
  have to look after me? I'm not saying that you or we
• 3:32
  want to suffer, but sometimes we're more comfortable with the
• 3:36
  pain that we know than the joy that we don't.
• 3:41
  So what actually happens when we live like this, when we're
• 3:44
  constantly bracing for the bad thing?
• 3:47
  First off, we don't actually experience the good things, even
• 3:50
  when they're happening. You could be on a perfect date,
• 3:53
  having an amazing day, hitting a goal that you've worked towards
• 3:56
  for years, and you're not even there.
• 3:59
  You're in your head, worrying about the what ifs, waiting for
• 4:02
  it to go wrong. You're so focused on protecting
• 4:05
  yourself from future pain that you miss the moment entirely.
• 4:10
  You're so worried about what could happen that you're not
• 4:14
  living in what is happening. And that takes you out of every
• 4:18
  single good moment. And it's heartbreaking because
• 4:20
  those moments, those good, simple, beautiful moments,
• 4:23
  they're what life actually is. And fear is stealing that from
• 4:29
  you. That mental illness, that worry
• 4:31
  that comes with it is taking the good from you.
• 4:35
  This fear doesn't actually protect you.
• 4:37
  It just makes you suffer twice. Once in anticipation and once if
• 4:41
  the bad thing actually happens. You're pre grieving something
• 4:46
  that might not even happen. You're living in a future that
• 4:49
  doesn't exist yet. I've done this in my life.
• 4:52
  I remember when this podcast was doing the best that it had ever
• 4:56
  done. I specifically remember it made
• 4:58
  it into the top 20 education podcasts in the US.
• 5:02
  It was unreal. And instead of celebrating that
• 5:05
  win, instead of doubling down on the work that I was doing, I was
• 5:09
  still very mentally ill at the time.
• 5:11
  And I convinced myself that it was going to disappear before I
• 5:14
  even knew it. And instead of taking advantage
• 5:17
  of an opportunity, instead of celebrating a win, I was so
• 5:21
  caught up in the what ifs that I let it slip away.
• 5:24
  This thing that I love, this podcast that I'm so passionate
• 5:28
  about, that mental illness, that doubt, that fear stopped me from
• 5:31
  pursuing this. And this can happen in
• 5:34
  relationships, too. When things are going well, you
• 5:37
  can convince yourself that the other person is going to leave
• 5:39
  and you start pulling away. You start picking fights,
• 5:42
  looking for proof that things aren't as good as they seem.
• 5:47
  That's another bad thing that happens when we start living
• 5:49
  within this fear. We're constantly looking for
• 5:52
  proof in our lives that things are not as good as they are.
• 5:56
  I like to think of this like a self fulfilling prophecy.
• 5:59
  When you become convinced that things are either bad or are
• 6:03
  going to be bad, you begin looking for it everywhere.
• 6:06
  You begin trying to prove to yourself that you're right.
• 6:09
  And of course, when you're trying to prove that things are
• 6:12
  bad, when you're trying to prove that you're doing worse than you
• 6:14
  think, when you're trying to prove that you are broken, that
• 6:17
  you are unlovable, that you are sick, you are going to find the
• 6:20
  proof. You're going to create the
• 6:22
  proof. I remember doing this.
• 6:24
  I was so depressed and I was telling myself that something
• 6:27
  was wrong with me, and I would lay in bed all day and then go
• 6:30
  look, There's the proof that something is wrong with me.
• 6:33
  Instead of looking for the good, instead of looking for what I
• 6:36
  could heal about myself, instead of looking for what I could do,
• 6:40
  I became obsessed with fear. I became obsessed with staying
• 6:45
  unhappy because I was afraid of being happy.
• 6:51
  I created the exact outcomes that I was trying to avoid
• 6:55
  because I didn't know how to trust myself with something
• 6:59
  good. And this isn't living, it's just
• 7:01
  existing in a state of permanent defence, alertness, fear.
• 7:07
  This is a topic that I'm really passionate about, if you
• 7:10
  couldn't tell because I I've lived like this and it is
• 7:13
  exhausting and it sucks. So how do we actually work with
• 7:17
  this? How do we move forward?
• 7:19
  First you have to notice it. And I know this sounds simple
• 7:22
  and I'm always preaching that awareness is the first step, but
• 7:25
  it truly is. Awareness is half of the battle.
• 7:29
  When something good happens and you feel that knee jerk panic
• 7:32
  that this won't last feeling, just notice it.
• 7:34
  Name it, be like there's that fear of happiness thing again.
• 7:39
  Don't judge it, don't shame yourself for it.
• 7:42
  Just see it for what it is, an old protective mechanism that's
• 7:45
  trying to help even though it's not actually helping anymore.
• 7:49
  Second, start small by letting good things be good.
• 7:53
  You don't have to trust that your whole life is going to be
• 7:55
  perfect forever. That's too big.
• 7:57
  But can you trust that that cup of coffee is good?
• 8:00
  Can you trust that that conversation with a friend is
• 8:03
  nice right now, in this moment? Can you let yourself feel good
• 8:07
  for 10 seconds without immediately thinking of how it's
• 8:11
  going to end? Practice being present with
• 8:14
  small, good things. Build up your tolerance for joy
• 8:17
  in the same way that you'd build up your tolerance for anything
• 8:20
  else slowly, with repetition. I've been doing this for years.
• 8:24
  One thing I started telling myself was even if this ends,
• 8:27
  it's real right now. Yes, maybe this good thing won't
• 8:31
  last forever. Most things don't.
• 8:33
  But that doesn't make it less real or valuable in this moment.
• 8:37
  The fact that something ends doesn't erase the fact that it
• 8:40
  existed. You're allowed to enjoy things
• 8:43
  even if they feel temporary. That's what makes them precious.
• 8:47
  And look, healing isn't about never feeling this fear again.
• 8:50
  I still get that pit in my stomach sometimes when things
• 8:52
  are going well. But now I recognize it, Now I
• 8:56
  see it, now I acknowledge it. I say, hey fear, you're here.
• 8:59
  Thanks for trying to protect me. But I'm OK, I'm safe.
• 9:02
  I can handle this. This is a feeling that we have
• 9:05
  to talk ourselves out of. Nobody else can save us from
• 9:08
  this. We have to be able to
• 9:09
  acknowledge the feeling and talk ourselves down from that edge of
• 9:13
  fear, of of pain, of worry. And as you do this, you might
• 9:17
  need to grieve the version of you that needed chaos to feel
• 9:20
  normal. That's a real loss.
• 9:21
  It's OK to feel sad about that. But you're making space for a
• 9:25
  version of you that can hold stillness, that can hold peace,
• 9:28
  that can hold joy without immediately setting it on fire.
• 9:32
  So here's what I want you to take away from this If you're
• 9:34
  scared of being happy, it's because your brain has learned
• 9:38
  that happiness is dangerous. And that makes sense based on
• 9:41
  what you've been through. But just because it makes sense
• 9:43
  doesn't mean that you have to keep living that way.
• 9:46
  You're allowed to be happy without waiting for the other
• 9:48
  shoe to drop. You're allowed to enjoy good
• 9:50
  things without pre grieving them.
• 9:52
  You're allowed to let your guard down little by little just to
• 9:55
  see what happens. And yes, maybe some good things
• 9:59
  will end. That's life.
• 10:00
  But some won't. And even the ones that do, they
• 10:03
  mattered. They were still real.
• 10:05
  They gave you something. You don't have to choose between
• 10:08
  being happy and being safe. You can learn to hold both.
• 10:11
  And this is hard work. It's going to feel uncomfortable
• 10:13
  at first. Your brain is going to fight you
• 10:15
  on it. But you've done hard things
• 10:17
  before. You've survived things that
• 10:19
  should have broken you. And you can survive being happy
• 10:23
  to feel your feelings, including the scary ones that come with
• 10:27
  joy. Sit with them, let them be
• 10:30
  there. And when you're ready, let
• 10:31
  yourself have this. Let yourself have the good
• 10:34
  stuff. You've earned it.
• 10:37
  That's gonna wrap it up for this episode.
• 10:38
  Thank you so much for being here.
• 10:40
  If you need help feeling your feelings, you should check out
• 10:42
  my music on all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewel.
• 10:45
  I almost guarantee it'll make you cry.
• 10:47
  Also, if you enjoy this podcast, the best way you can support me
• 10:50
  is by getting March at ethanjewel.myshopify.com.
• 10:54
  I'll link it in the description. Also, drop me a comment and let
• 10:57
  me know what you thought about today's episode or just what's
• 10:59
  going on in your life right now. So thank you so much for being
• 11:03
  here. Thank you for understanding that
• 11:05
  you deserve happiness even though it's a little bit scary.
• 11:09
  And as always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
• 11:14
  I'll see you next time.