Volume 4, Issue 11: The Question That Helps When I'm Feeling Bad
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Hi friends! This past weekend we did something that feels very ‘grown-up’ and we bought a sofa, a sofa that is new and custom and that we won’t have to drive home and assemble ourselves. I definitely have some anxiety around such a large purchase and ‘grown-up’ thing and my therapist reminded me that no matter how old we are, there are always going to be events or milestones that feel new and very ‘grown-up.’ We are expecting it to be here in 5 - 7 weeks and it’s helpful to have both something to look forward to and also an actual date on the calendar indicating when we should have a lot more unpacking and organizing done. We have unpacked all our necessities and the entire kitchen and library and now we’ve lost steam.
Before I get into today’s essay, I want to remind everyone that this upcoming Monday is Juneteenth here in the U.S. and here is some recommended reading plus something for fun:
Juneteenth via the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian
What is Juneteenth? By Henry Louis Gates, Jr. via PBS
Watermelon and Red Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteenth and Black Celebrations by Nicole A. Taylor (Bookshop | Amazon)
Today I want to share a question that sometimes helps me when I’m feeling certain negative feelings. As with most of what I share, your mileage may vary. The question I ask myself is this:
“Who benefits from me feeling this way?”
I don’t ask this question when I’m feeling things like grief or hurt or other things connected to an event, person, memory, etc. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know that I am not one of the “good vibes only” crowd and I firmly believe it is necessary to feel things like grief or sadness as much as it is necessary to feel joy and gratitude.
Here are some examples where I do ask myself this question:
Around feelings of shame. Shame of having certain resources or not having certain resources. Shame around the never-ending dustiness of our home. Shame about not being raised a certain way or not having certain knowledge.
Around feelings of fear. Fear of failure, fear of success. Fear of rejection. Fear of visibility.
Around feelings of guilt. Guilt around not saying the right thing that one time. Guilt around not knowing what to say. Guilt around not reaching out.
Around feelings of not being enough. Not having enough, not doing enough, not having clear enough skin or not being tall enough.
While asking myself “Who benefits from me feeling this way?” doesn’t always make the negative feeling go away, it does at least make me pause and examine it. Who benefits from me feeling like I don’t have clear enough skin? The $49B cosmetic industry. Who benefits from me having fear of being too visible so I make myself small? The hateful people who want Black people and queer people to hide ourselves. Who benefits from me having shame that we had the resources to get a really nice sofa? Literally no one! No one benefits from that shame! Not me, not anyone else! Who benefits from my fear of success that keeps me from putting more projects out there? Not sure, but maybe the people who are getting paid to do mediocre work?
The question doesn’t work in every situation. Sometimes the answer isn’t one I want to hear. Sometimes there is no answer at all. Sometimes I need to just sit with feelings and not try to endlessly intellectualize them. But sometimes, it does help to stop and think if my negative feelings are “fueling my enemies,” if you will, and it inspires me to redirect.
Hope this helps!
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That’s it for this week! You can shop many books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. In fact, any Bookshop, Amazon, or Etsy links in this newsletter are affiliate links so if you shop through those, it helps support my work. Or you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, Paypal, or Venmo.
If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481.
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