Read time: 4 min 17 sec
TLDR: emotional pain lingers. movement for unblocking feelings. happiness drives success. true success = whole self, whole life.
Emotional anguish can be worse than physical pain.
Think about it.
You break your arm, you get a cast. You get surgery, you get painkillers. You stub your toe, you curse like a sailor for thirty seconds and move on with your life.
But emotional pain? That shit lingers. It follows you around like a bad smell. It wakes you up at 3 AM and whispers all the reasons you’re not good enough.
If happiness were a state, then emotional well-being would be the capital city. The place where all the action happens. The place that determines whether the rest of the state thrives or burns to the ground.
Emotional health
Good emotional health doesn’t automatically rain down on you from the sky while you sit around contemplating all that’s wrong with your life.
Emotional balance is something that can and must be cultivated and developed. Like anything else in life that’s worthwhile, it takes choosing differently for yourself.
Some effort. Some practice. Some patience. And plenty of time.
It’s like going to the gym, but for your feelings. And just like the gym, most people quit after January.
I along with practitioners we work with at Journey swear by a technique called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
EFT combines elements of cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure therapy, and acupressure. It’s based on the theory that negative emotions and pain are caused by disruptions in the body’s energy system. By tapping on specific points, EFT aims to restore balance and reduce the intensity of those negative feelings.
A great resource is a Youtube channel called Tap with Brad.
Being chronically happy
Psychologists have found that chronically happy people turn out to be more successful across many life domains than people who are less happy.
Makes sense, right? Happy people are easier to be around. They get promoted. They get the girl. They get invited to parties.
But here’s the surprise—it’s not that success makes you happy. It’s that happiness makes you successful.
Most people have it backwards. They think they’ll be happy when they get the job, the house, the spouse, the bank account. But the happy people? They were happy first. Then everything else followed.
Wild, right?
A beautiful reframe
Naval Ravikant says something in a podcast that’ll mess with your head: You can choose to suffer in the short term to win in the long term. Or you can suffer along the way and interpret it in a way that it’s not suffering.
Here’s a thought exercise for you. Go back to your own life. Put yourself in the position you were in—the emotions, the objectives, who you were with. What advice would you have given yourself, knowing what you know now?
How would you have done it differently? With less anger? Less emotion? Less internal suffering?
Another thought exercise, if you’re up for it:
“Somewhere out there is the happiest person alive…”
What if the universe is still auditioning?
👉 Why not raise your hand and say, “I’ll take that role.”
The bar is invisible. That’s your invitation.
The bar is invisible. That’s your invitation.
You can’t be great at everything. But you can be great at being you. And maybe—just maybe—being you includes being unreasonably, inexplicably, contagiously happy.
Not because everything’s perfect. But because you decided perfect was never the point.
Final Note (From the Future You):
A successful journey is spherical.
It touches every part of your life—your physical realm, your mental realm, your financial realm, your relational realm, and your spiritual realm.
And the beautiful thing about your life’s journey?
You get to start walking again—any day, any hour, any moment.
You just have to choose the road that lets you bring your whole self along for the ride.
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