About Farouk Radwan
One of the main reasons popular advice such as repeat affirmations or do something new rarely help people feel good on the long term is that they focus on momentary improvement rather than focusing on root causes.
If you want to feel happy on the long term then you should deal with the root causes lying deep down in your mind.
Here are 6 reasons why you might be feeling bad now along with advice on how to deal with them:
• You are escaping from your problems: By doing something new, thinking about travelling, sleeping most of the day, shopping, doing a bad habit, developing an addiction or even becoming a love addict. The only way to long term happiness is the permanent fixation of your problems rather than depending on quick fixes that has an effect that lasts for few moments.
• You are ignoring the signals: When something goes wrong with your body your mind usually sends signals of pain so that you take action. The same thing happens with emotional problems, the only difference is that the signals come in the form of bad moods, mood swings, bad dreams and insomnia. Learn how to understand these signals and to respond in quick manner so that you don’t give yourself the chance to feel bad for prolonged periods of time.
• You are feeling guilty: When you do something that you didn’t like you will feel guilty for a day or two but what about people who keep doing the things that they dislike everyday? That would result in a tremendous amount of accumulated guilt. Procrastination, bad habits, addiction and all other things that you do on daily basis are adding some guilt to your mood each day. Stop them in order to feel good.
• Your priorities are incorrectly set: You hate stress but your job is stressful. You dislike driving but you drive to far places to see your friends and want to be happy but many of your choices are based on getting more money and fame rather than happiness.
• You think that time can heal you: A girl who was betrayed by a close male friend at a young age might live her whole life with fear of trusting me and guy who was chased by a dog at a young age might live his whole life fearing dogs. If time can heal wounds it would have healed those people but the truth is that only you can heal yourself when you start taking actions.
• You are procrastinating: How many unsolved problems are you leaving behind because of procrastination? Procrastination allows bad moods to increase and in the same time adds guilt to them thus resulting in ruining your overall mood.
If I was to point out a single thing that would help you get over all of these issues it would be taking action right now!!
Don’t allow your problems to accumulate, respond as fast as you can and don’t escape
Only then you will experience true happiness.
Subscribe to CYT and
receive a FREE copy of
Volumes 1 & 2 of
The Best of CYT
Thank you for this instructive article.
What about the physical part of the feeling bad?
sometimes, when I feel bad, (but, fortunately it is very rare) I do some physical exercises,
or even only breathe or reset my body position, and it’s better at once.
There is a great relation between the mental and the physic isn’t there?
When will you write “The 6 reasons in order you might be feeling good”?
I go and see at your website immediately.
Hi Bernard,
its completely true that there is a powerful connection between physical and mental health however you can never use exercising to permanently solve a mental problem , by doing so you will be just killing your pain for a day or two but when the hormones generated by exercising fades away your initial problem will imbalance your body hormones once again
in short, exercising can temporary improve your mood but they will never do it permanently unless the root cause is fixed
Years ago i came across a book which was one of the turning points in my life – it is called “Clear your clutter with Feng Shuei” by Karen Kingston. I’m not preaching the Feng Shuei bit, but the clutter clearing aspect was revolutionary for me. She defines clutter, apart from the obvious messiness, as anything broken, unfinished, or anything that we don’t love or use anymore. Also ‘people’ clutter as well as emotional clutter and electronic clutter.
Ever since, i found that the quickest way to lift a mood, dispel anxiety or tension or cause a breakthrough is to do a bit of decluttering. Even a drawer or a shelf helps.
The amazing thing is that sorting and letting go of physical clutter actually has the same effect on the inside. I recommend this book.
Hi Ligia
thanks for your comment and your recommendation
totally
thank you
thank you
)
Well said, Farouk. If anything, I don’t recommend using affirmations until a fair amount of emotional clearing work has been done. The danger is that we affirm the “buts” in the affirmation statements. For example, I intend to affirm this _____ but I am actually feeling _________”. The “buts” are present in our subconscious. We may not be aware of them consciously. We end up attracting more of what we do not want than what we affirm.
That’s a good explanation of the theory Evelyn
thank you
Amazingly great job.Thank you!
you are most welcomed dilana
Priorities: by paying attention to our internal signals, we can be sure that we are staying on track with those priorities. And I love your statement regarding misery= avoiding problems. It’s so important to “face the music” as a way of life, so that problems and misery don’t pile up.
Thanks a lot Steve for your addition and comment,
keep in touch pal
You hit home when you mentioned ignoring the signals. Emotional pain is just like physical pain. When you are depressed your body is trying to tell you something. It could be something about your environment, a person or a situation that must confront. You must listen to the signals! Great read Farouk.
that’s exactly what i was trying to say Vic
thanks for your comment
I completely agree that it is up to us to make our lives happier. The only person that can truly provide all of our needs and wants is ourselves.
One point, though, I would like to say…I think you are being a bit hard on affirmations. In my humble opinion, an affirmation is a positive statement that has no negative words, including the word “but”. An affirmation is a positive statement helping you to believe in the amazing spirit that you are that is capable of obtaining highest potential. When I started using affirmations just the statement, “I love you.” was hard for me to say to myself. In fact, it made me cry. But it opened me up to a core issue to why I was sad…because I had a lot of self-hatred attached to abuse I suffered as a youth. It was because of these affirmations that I was finally hearing the positive words that I needed to hear, which, in turn, led to healing. Since those days — it’s been 15 years now — of first incorporating affirmations into my life, I have found many times when these positive statements have helped me take myself out of a slump as well as helped me feel the power of having control over my life and that I had the right to choose happiness.
Hi Shanie
thanks for your comment
i do respect your opinion , let me make my point a bit clearer, all scientific findings has proven that affirmations that go against any existing belief result in feelings of self deception and even lower the mood. If the affirmations you used were aligned with your own beliefs then certainly they will have a positive effect on your life
hope its clear now, keep in touch dear
“Your priorities are incorrectly set: You hate stress but your job is stressful…”
That’s so true. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to make your priorities match your activities, even if most of them are contextual. This is definitely a place where compromises work. If you manage to reduce this incongruity to a certain extent, then you’re already heading the right direction.
That’s Right Llyod
it won’t always be possible to get the best out of everything but as long as you are reducing pain you are in the right direction just as you said
thanks for your comment
Mr. Farouk,
I have a dilemma. My wife of 10 years has been involved with these ideals for some years now. I’ve read them and agree with the power of the words. My wife wants to separate and “Live alone to find herself” Her and I both agree that my love for her is true and she knows that I’m a very thoughtful family oriented man that loves her deeply. My question to you is this, “Is there an avenue of understanding that you can provide me to help my wife know that I want to help her find herself, and not dissolve our marriage.” She does love me, but is focused on fixing herself and wanting to do it alone. She has had problems that you mention (almost verbatim) in her past before meeting me.(IMPORTANT)
Any advice on this issue would be appreciated, I know at this time I can not put good council into her ear as it seems she wants to desperately try and feel good about herself. Is there a way for her to achieve this and a marriage stay intact?
Thank you for any support you have. Feel free to e-mail me with further questions to get a better idea.
Jesse Kvale
Great advice, Farouk. Positive thinking and affirmations alone just don’t work. Progress quickens when we obey the rule of ‘First Things First’. First, comes consciousness; you must awaken your awareness to unwanted habits and patterns that laugh with contempt at your attempt to be free of them. You can easily identify these root causes; they reject any attempts you make toward true self-rescue.
Good to see you here Farouk. I appreciate the advice and your insight.
Straight to the point article, Farouk, thanks~ I think “wanting to solve the problem but things are out of your control” is one of the cause for feeling bad too. For instance, striving to help someone with illness but continuously fail because things happened to them, not you. It’s kind of helpless and hopeless situation that will make people feel frustrated too.
i need something to focus on to get me unstuck. im almost there, moving forward, and then i do something that causes me to go backward.
seems as tho these are such old terrible sick comfortable habits, they are trying to win! not let me let go of them.
im feeling weak, and know im not…somewhere
Its true!!
this is why i feel bad today:
(ps i am a year 9-10 teacher) well my students like to get out of lesson by faking injury/denstist/docter all the time but the one they do most is shouting im gonna be sick then run out of the lesson,without me even saying go on. later id find them appsolutoly find running and playing football
well after a day of three people trying it on me in my last lesson of the day a girl stands up and shouts”i think im going to be sick’ befor she ran to the door i stood infront and said ”NO ONE IS LEAVING THIS CLASSROOM !! now go back to your seat immediatly!’ the girl then ran over to where the bin was a was sick ALL OVER the floor the edge of the bin and the wall turnes out she had salmoella