I was trying to take my socks off the other day and I threw my back out. (A clear sign of getting older, yes.) It’s my body’s way of telling me I am carrying too much stress and tension. As I was chatting with a friend recently, we were talking about how I tend to carry the weight of other people’s happiness on my shoulders. I want the people I care about to be happy; so much so that I let it weigh me down mentally and even physically. My friend so very wisely brought up a great point: Why is happiness the goal?
I immediately thought back to our experience on the last episode of The Amazing Race (spoiler alert) right before we were running through the tunnel to claim our spot as the winners. I remember wanting to soak in that moment because we were feeling so elated and happy. Very shortly after, we were running (still sweaty) to get to the airport and stressed out about catching a quick flight back home.
At that moment, I realized my friend was right. Happiness shouldn’t be the goal because it’s not sustainable. So what is the goal?
Sitting In The Suck
It doesn’t sound too rosy, but in real life, you have to understand sadness to be able to understand happiness. Sometimes you have to be willing to just sit right there in grief, or “sit in the suck” as we like to say, to get through tough times in order to come out feeling better on the other side. (Side note: we talk about this concept in our marriage book as well.)
Sitting in the suck is a tool we learned with our marriage counselor, Dr. Christopher Edmonston. He taught us that if you can be uncomfortable long enough to assess “Why am I trying to get out of here so fast?” then you can stop searching for an escape route and start searching for answers for growth and change.
To be honest, sitting in the suck does not come naturally for me. What does come natural is trying to avoid all tension as much as possible. That, for me, usually means picking up my phone and scrolling to distract myself from what’s going on around me.
We’re Having A Year
On today’s podcast episode, Penn shares an update on his life right now and how his Mom’s health has been declining, only a month after the loss of his dad. Our year has had major highs and major lows with the real potential for more rough lows in the days ahead. We talk through how to balance things we can control in life with the really sucky things we can’t control. Penn had some quality time “sitting in the suck” during our conversation, and it ended up helping him feel better.
You can listen to our full conversation on the pursuit of happiness, our behind the scenes filming antics, and how we’ve been trying to help teachers clear their shopping lists at any of the podcast links below:
