On Feeling Fine with Not Being Okay

Making peace with yourself when things aren’t going well

Photo by Andrew Measham on Unsplash

As someone over fifty, I’ve learned many life lessons. I’ve given great thought to deciding which is the most helpful. You may imagine that choosing is impossible because they are all relevant. I am surprised to find that one stands out among the others, and I’m sharing it with you.

It’s about accepting that it’s okay to not be okay.

The idea could look far-fetched. But let me assure you, it’s not. When you’re okay with discomfort, difficult emotions, and living with troubles, your entire experience of life changes.

You still feel grief, sadness, anger, or whatever. But you stop adding to it, and it’s bearable, fine, even. Your physical responses turn from painful aching, incredible unease, and tightness to relaxation. This seems counterintuitive, since how can you relax when you go through tough times?

However, you can relax your body enough to release tension, and that’s what makes the difference between coping well and not coping. And you can do the same with mental tension. That’s why it’s my most beneficial life lesson to-date.

I question whether life lessons are transferable. You must go through them to gain knowledge that transforms you. That’s why simply reading self-help books doesn’t change you.

What actually works is engaging with the lessons on the page and making the ideas offered part of your life. You alter your behaviour, and that can only happen when you feel motivated because you recognise the teaching is worthwhile and understand it.

I can only pass on the wisdom. After that, it’s up to you to decide whether it’s valuable enough to embrace. “Embrace” might not be the right word. What I really mean is to take it on, putting the idea into practice (because it involves practicing).

What it means to feel fine with not being okay

We know what it means to feel fine, and we understand what it’s like not to be okay. But we rarely combine the two. The task seems impossible, yet it is possible. Perhaps you’ll understand the notion best if I explain the difference between not being okay with not being okay and feeling fine about it.

When you resist difficult emotions or situations like grief or setbacks, you experience suffering twice. This reminds me of the Buddhist parable about the second arrow. The teaching describes how the first arrow (whatever hurts you) is often followed by a second, unnecessary one.

The unnecessary second arrow stems from how you resist the situation and the story you tell yourself about what’s happening. Let’s say you lose a winning lottery ticket. You would have received hundreds of dollars if it were still in your pocket. But you dropped it somewhere.

You have choices. You can accept the situation, recognising it is a blow, but you need not let it ruin your day. Or, you can release a second arrow, telling yourself you’re useless, and get angry and upset.

The latter increases your suffering, making everything worse. The former has something to do with feeling fine with not being okay. It means that although you wish you still had the ticket, you acknowledge that these things happen. Sometimes you make mistakes, but you cope.

Then you may recognise your blessings. This is less about hiding how upset you feel with toxic positivity and more about levelling things up.

A doable, user-friendly life includes seeing the big picture regarding events. So, you lost out on some money, or whatever, but other parts of your life are positive.

You have a loving family, a happy home, or maybe a faithful dog. You can mentally step back from the lost-ticket event to gain a broader view of your life.

Photo by Xan Griffin on Unsplash

Feeling fine with not being okay helps you see that everything isn’t lost, that the situation could have happened to anyone, and you can forgive yourself.

The practice of checking for a wider perspective may look like a second life lesson. However, it’s still part of feeling okay about things, part of the process.

Another example could be grieving the loss of your job (or, worse, someone you love). There’s no remedy. At first, grief sweeps you along, and you are deep in it. After a while, you notice that the grief comes in waves. You can thrash around, almost drowning when they arise. Or you can sit with the waves, letting them wash over you, allowing yourself to feel what you feel without resisting.

Neither way cancels the hurt. Feeling fine with not being okay doesn’t increase your pain, though, and is preferable. What you’re feeling fine about isn’t your loss. It’s about acknowledging and accepting that it happened, rather than going to war against it.

I can’t tell you that what I suggest is a magic pill for life’s ills, but it is how you can navigate those challenges without going under.

We can all agree that life entails enough opportunities for suffering, and we need not add to our wounds.

How do you get to feel fine?

In my experience, many challenges have shock value. They knock you off your feet, and while you’re entrenched, you are far from accepting them. Your instinct is to fight, deny, or gasp for air. So, being okay with feeling hurt doesn’t always come straight away. Once you’re out of the initial stage of anger, sadness, or whatever, you can practice non-resistance.

I imagine I’m an advocate for peace (the inner as well as outer kind) at this time, vowing not to damage myself by resisting what’s caused me pain. I offer myself compassion by choosing to accept what I can’t alter.

If I can make things better, of course, I’ll do it. But sometimes we witness life’s dramas that affect us harshly. We lose a loved one, our plans get ruined, or we get hurt in another way.

We can’t undo what’s done. Yet, we can control how we treat ourselves and the situation. Seeing as I’m an advocate of inner peace, I ramp up self-care, ensuring I do the basics for health: proper nutrition, sleep, exercise, and so on, when times are tough.

As a former counsellor, I recognise that many people fall short in these areas when facing challenges that steal their peace. Some resort to alcohol or drugs. Or they punish themselves with neglect as though circumstances were their fault.

Self-care, even done while feeling numb, makes more of a difference than you know. You can’t be fine if your nerves are shot because you lack B vitamins. You won’t handle things well if your head pounds from last night’s vodka binge.

To feel fine with not being okay (going through the mire), it also helps to see the waves of emotion that flow as energy. I’m learning not to tell myself stories about the waves and difficulties I meet.

This means I refrain from informing myself that I’m hard done by, am foolhardy, or unable to cope. I focus on the energy of the emotions, letting them wash over me and dissipate, knowing they will come again, but understanding I can repeat the process.

Feeling fine with not being okay doesn’t seem like much at first. You only really “get it” after you’ve experienced it. Then, you notice the difference between flailing around in stress and not drowning. Mastering it makes life’s trials more doable. It doesn’t fix them. But it is a lifebuoy when you’re in choppy waters.

Did you enjoy this article? Maybe you have something to add. I’d love to hear from you in the comments. And should you want to support my writing, thank you from the bottom of my keyboard! **Ko-Fi link.**

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