🙀 TREE 686: Curiosity vs. unpleasantness

L A W R E N C E × J E F F
letter · 3
part · 4

Now that I have written about 1 2 3 categories of response to life’s unpleasantness, let’s think about what to do before you respond.

Here’s what I recommend:

Curiousity.

When you are in pain or feeling uncomfortable, the loudest voice voice in your head is the one shouting, Make it stop!

But, unless the discomfort is being caused by a honey badger eating your leg, you don’t need to make it stop right now. You have time to be curious.

What, specifically, am I feeling?

Where am I feeling it? This is both an interior and exterior question.

When do I feel it?

What event(s) is this feeling connected with?

Follow the discomfort back to its source and find out what’s going on before you decide what to do. It’s pretty common for life’s unpleasantness to be nonspecific or to feel like it’s something other than what it is at first. So start by giving your curiosity a chance to do its thing.

Grow slowly
Jeff

P.S. My book is the perfect gift for humans with functioning eyes. Bonus: it costs £1.50 less (and contains 442 fewer calories) than an ‘Iced Brown Sugar Oat Shaken Espresso’ and an ‘Espresso Roast Blondie’ from Starbucks.