Feeling Shitty? Here's Some Advice

If you’re feeling shitty right now, the most useful thing you can do is stop fighting the feeling. Take three slow breaths and let yourself feel however you feel. Then do the smallest kind thing you can manage for yourself: a glass of water, a shower, a short walk, texting a friend, or simply lying down and resting. You’re not trying to get rid of the feeling. You’re trying to stop adding a second layer of struggle on top of it.

That’s the short answer. Here’s how it works for me, because I have these days too.

What should you do when you feel shitty?

I’ll be honest with you. When I feel rotten, I don’t spring into mindful action. I may wallow in it for a while. The difficult thoughts that come with the feeling turn up, and at first I believe them.

Then, at some point, I remember mindfulness. I remember that it’s OK to feel bad. It’s human and it’s natural.

This morning is a good example. I woke up too early and I wasn’t feeling good. So I lay on my back and did ujjayi breathing (the “ocean breath”, where you gently narrow the back of your throat so each breath sounds like a wave) for about 20 minutes. As I breathed, I imagined sitting on a beach listening to the sea. It was actually enjoyable. It didn’t make the feeling disappear. It soothed me, and that was enough.

If you’d like to try it, I explain how ocean breathing works in my favourite breathing exercise. And there’s a 7-minute guided version, Ocean Breathing, that you can listen to free at the end of this post.

Here’s what I’d suggest, in roughly the order I do it myself:

1. Notice whether you’re fighting the feeling. Are you telling yourself you shouldn’t feel like this? That’s the fight.
2. Take three slow breaths. Don’t try to change anything. Just feel whatever you’re feeling, as it is.
3. Drink a glass of water. This is a new one for me, and I like it because it isn’t hard. I’ve come to think that being a bit dehydrated is sometimes part of why I feel bad.
4. If you’ve got a little energy, use it gently. A shower or a short walk can shift things.
5. If you’ve got no energy at all, that’s fine too. Then it’s just about breathing with the feeling, resting, sleeping. I sometimes put on a comedy, although on the really low days I may not even be interested in that.
6. Text a friend. You don’t need to explain or ask for anything. “Having a rough day” is enough. Just letting one person know can make the feeling a little lighter to carry.
7. Be kind to yourself. Self-kindness and self-compassion are the key to all of this. Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to a friend who felt like this. If you’d like a short practice, try this 5-minute self-compassion meditation.

On the water point, there’s some research behind the hunch. In a small randomised trial, 25 young women who lost around 1.36% of their body weight in fluid, mostly through exercise, reported lower mood, more fatigue, poorer concentration and more headaches than when they were properly hydrated (Armstrong and colleagues, Journal of Nutrition, 2012). It’s one small study of young women, so it’s not the whole story. But a glass of water is cheap and easy, and it may help.

Why does fighting the feeling make it worse?

Because then you’ve got two problems instead of one.

“When I’m fighting it, there’s the bad feeling and the fight. So it has at least two layers. Ease off on the fight and it’s just about being with the feeling as it is.”

That’s the heart of it for me. The feeling is hard enough on its own. The struggle against it (why do I feel like this, I shouldn’t feel like this, I need to snap out of it) is extra weight you don’t need to carry.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy this is called dropping the rope. Imagine you’re in a tug-of-war with a monster, and the harder you pull, the harder it pulls back. You don’t have to win. You can just put the rope down. I’ve written more about that in stop fighting your emotions: drop the rope.

If your feeling shitty comes with a head full of racing thoughts, this guide on how to stop thinking so much may help too.

What helps me on a bad morning now?

I guide a live meditation for the Daily Mindfulness Club at 7:30 every morning, UK time. That means I don’t need any motivation to meditate. I have to be there, whatever I’m feeling.

And some mornings I don’t feel great. But I still guide the meditation and sit in the silence with the group. Once I’m there, I almost forget how I was feeling.

Having a group really helps. It makes it much easier to remember that a feeling is just weather. It passes when it passes. That could be hours or it could be a few days. It is what it is.

If you’d like to sit with us, you can try the club with 7 days free.

What I wrote about this in 2017

I first wrote this post in June 2017, after a run of very full months. I’ve kept it below because the advice still holds, and it’s honest about a version of me who found it hard to stop.

Step back and look at your last month

I’d felt quite tired for two days. Not quite feeling shit, but certainly tired. I switched my instant messaging off, cancelled my meetings and made time to stop and do nothing! Some of those moments of doing nothing (or meditating) were blissful, and some were filled with thoughts.

It’s easy for me to keep pushing myself, and I’m so grateful for mindfulness and meditation, which remind me of the value of stopping.

When I stopped and looked at my schedule for the last month, I realised why I was tired! I’d travelled across many time zones, driven for hours, had hundreds of meetings and phone calls, organised events, attended workshops, completed a crowdfunder and sent hundreds if not thousands of messages. I opened the door of my heart to my feelings of tiredness, and it felt so peaceful and re-energising!

What’s your schedule been like in the last month? Maybe you’ve been very busy too. Or maybe your mind has been very busy. That’s even more tiring.

Are you “shoulding”?

In my moments of thinking, I noticed many shoulds in my mind.

I should have that meeting.
I should be better at meditation.
I should have made my presentations by now.
I should transfer that money.
I should be more organised.
I should eat more vegetables.
I should exercise every day.
I should be talking to more people.
I should create and launch that new programme.

I should, I should, I should!

Then I had an insight. Why should I?!

What’s wrong with not getting my work done? There’s always tomorrow.

What’s wrong with rubbish meditating? There’s no such thing as a bad meditation anyway.

What’s wrong with being unhealthy or tired? Life is impermanent, and all feelings pass.

From mud to lotus

“Just like the lotus, we too have the ability to rise up from the mud, bloom out of the darkness and radiate into the world.”

Yucky, dirty mud is transformed into a beautiful lotus. How miraculous is that?

You too can transform the shit of your life into beautiful flowers. You just need to embrace it and make good use of it, rather than avoid it.

What’s the shit in your life? Feelings of sadness or depression? Tiredness and loneliness? Fear and anxiety? A death in the family? Running out of money? Losing your job? An injury or an operation gone wrong?

Start there. This has the power to be the mud from which lotus flowers grow in your mind.

In my experience, the people who have gone through the most suffering, and discovered how to transform it, are the kindest and wisest of human beings. That can be you. Or maybe that already is you!

A practical exercise

If you’re struggling to turn the shit of your life into flowers, try this:

1. Grab a piece of paper and write down all the shitty things that have happened, or are happening, in your life.
2. Tear the paper into tiny pieces. Not in an angry way, but calmly, as if you’re transforming one thing into another. Be present with your difficulties and know you’re in the process of transforming them.
3. Dig the paper into your garden or put it in your compost heap.
4. Use the compost and plant some seeds of your choice!

Before long, you’ll be able to enjoy delicious tomatoes or admire a scented rose. You reap whatever you sow.

When is feeling shitty more than a bad day?

Most shitty days pass. But if you’ve felt low for more than a couple of weeks, if it’s getting in the way of everyday life, or if you’re having thoughts of harming yourself, please talk to your GP or doctor. If you’re in the UK and need to talk to someone right now, the Samaritans are there day and night on 116 123. Mindfulness can help a lot, and it works best alongside proper support, not instead of it.

In short

Open the door of your heart to your difficulties. Have the courage to let the feelings in. Breathe with them. Let them be there.

If you’re patient with them, they do change. And if you believe the great teachers of the wisdom traditions, within you is a beautiful, luminous mind, waiting to meet you.

Just be aware, and be kind to yourself.