Yet another amazing benefit of being your Free Life Coach is that I can serve up the unvarnished truth. Truth about myself, that is. I have no idea what THE truth is. (Another candid confession!)
Paid Life Coaches must always have this little cash register in the back of their mind, governing how real things can get before they might hit the bottom line. In the spirit of giving you every penny’s worth, here's another blast of fact: I often feel despair. So often, in fact, that you could say I’ve gotten very good at feeling bad.
That’s the glass half full! The half empty take would be that I’m pretty bad at feeling good. But that’s not actually true. When I do feel good I savor it like a slice of ripe watermelon on a sunny day. I gobble it up and let it run down my chin. And it’s not that rare, to be honest. As I’ve learned to check in to how I’m feeling, I realized that I can run the gamut from happiness to despair and back again a few times a day, and I definitely take a few dark journeys into the dungeon of despair at least once a week. How long I spend down there varies.
I was talking to a dear family member who is well acquainted with depression about this. I mentioned my wife, as steady a soul as you’ll ever meet, and said, “She’s doing great. I’m doing great. But we have different greats. Her great is all is well, business as usual. My great is, “I wanna die but I’m not going to do anything about it. I might even enjoy the day!” She laughed. Only people who know can laugh about that.
That’s not to day I always feel that way, because I don’t. As I said, I have plenty of genuinely happy, carefree moments. And I wonder if you do to?
That’s my Free Life Coach advice, finally, my friends: What if when we feel intensely bad, the fact that we’re still going on with our day means we’re doing well? And, is it possible that you, like me, can sit with that despair, find the beauty in your day, and realize that you feel OK a few hours later, maybe even good? I find that I notice the moments of darkness because they demand my attention, and I let slip by the sweet spots of sunshine because they’re so easy and bright that they fall through my fingers.
So hold up your despair like a jewel given to you by a king. Befriend it like the companion it is. Smile at that smelly, obnoxious passenger who just sat beside you. He’s smoking something that doesn’t smell like tobacco or weed. And his Bluetooth speaker is way too loud. But he’s a friend in the tunnel, like it or not. We’re all on the F train now, on he post-Covid commute from birth to death that call “life.”
And so I sent you into the world with this benediction: Feeling like shit does not mean you’re bad at life. Feeling like shit is part of life. There is no cure but time itself.1
For your Free Life Coach, feeling down is like sciatica of the mind. There are some stretches I can do, and a some things to avoid like reading on the couch, but it’s there and sometimes it’s gonna flare up. People live with it. People live without it. We should all be so lucky.
Your voice from the valley of darkness and the mountaintop of ecstasy, forever shouting muted blessings into hurricane-force winds,
I remain,
Your Free Life Coach
Sean Sakamoto
I’m not talking about serious, persistent mental illness. That requires more help than your Free Life Coach can provide. And paid professionals are not Life Coaches, they are doctors and therapists. If you need them, seek them. They can and do help people.
Reminder: it’s ok to have days where the only thing you do is survive
I've read this 3 times and find something new each time. Good job!