What amazes me is the variety of pictures that those two words can paint. Isn’t a picture worth a thousand words? So, if life sucks were to be a picture, what would those thousand words say?
Sometimes, when someone asks “How’s life,” or “How are you doing,” you don’t want to use a thousand words or spend the time painting a picture so you respond with, “It’s good. I’m good.” Even if what you wanted to say is “life sucks.” Because, we all know if you were to answer, life sucks, the questions begin: What? What’s going on? Are you OK? Is it your relationship? Do you feel well? Is it your family? Work? You know I’m here for you, right? Are you going to hurt yourself? Others? What can I do to help? Do you need anything? Do you want to talk about it? While we are all taught to ask the questions, sometimes we don’t want the questions asked. We aren’t yet ready to hash it out.
Sometimes, life is too raw, and we don’t want to share it with others. We hurt, we mourn, we question, we doubt, we grieve. But we aren’t ready. Not yet. It’s too raw, too painful. Life sucks. Maybe it’s not one thing but a bunch of little things.
Sometimes, when life is that way, we try to avoid it all. We avoid the pain and the raw. We avoid it all. So, what do we do to avoid? We act the opposite. We are happy-go-lucky. Excited. Enthusiastic. Lively. But at what cost?
Sometimes, we go from the “suck” to the overly positive because it’s too hard, and the journey is too far to get to a genuine space and even the idea is daunting and overwhelming.
Sometimes, all it takes is a little bit of mindfulness to bring us to a place where we are ready to deal with the suck. A quick internet search for ‘mindfulness’ gives us several definitions saying mostly the same thing; mindfulness is being aware in the present moment and observing what is happening, without any judgement. So, when life sucks, take that moment and observe. Observe your five senses; how do things smell, feel, look, taste and sound?
Sometimes, when we take a minute and we sit in our pain; really sit and observe we can find a moment of neutrality. If in that moment, we can name the suck it takes away some of the power of the suckiness and lessens the energy it takes to stuff it inside. It becomes a moment where the pain is a little less. A moment where we see that things might eventually be OK. A moment where the suck has lessened. A moment where the bitterness of the pain eases. A moment where we can hear ourselves answering the question with vulnerability, “Life sucks right now.”
Sometimes, that energy gives us what it takes to move from the neutral state to a place where the suck won’t suck.