Why am I not feeling better? Falling behind on my emotional deliverables.

(Why is it taking me so long to get over something from my past? Why am I still feeling upset and anxious? Why am I not feeling happy already?)

I think we can all relate to the experience of being stuck in a feeling or a situation that our brain has already deemed over. The stuckness, as it appears in our lives, brings with it hopelessness and the frustration of feeling like a passive viewer of our own lives. Why do feelings or situations that are “in the past”, or “not a big deal since others have it worse” have such a strong influence on our lives? Why is it that we find ourselves disrupted by the unpleasant emotions coming from these situations. And how is it that we try to reconnect with our sense of control?

Like efficient beings, we employ methods that we believe will ensure our happiness and consequently prevent a fall in productivity or simply falling apart. In both, my personal and professional experience, I have observed one method being used a lot more than the others. It is what I like to call an Emotional Deliverable Checklist. Imagine a mental to-do list that tells you exactly what to do and by when to do it to get happiness as the reward. And while as a therapist I will not have answers to questions like, “So what now? What should I do to make this better?”, our own personal checklist seems to know it all. Personal to-do lists have been a part of our lives since childhood, be it for school, vacation, or work. So it’s not unnatural that a checklist is constructed in our minds when we try to tackle something emotional as well. But what we must question is at what point does it stop being helpful?

A glimpse of the checklist:

At first glance, it is reassuring to see that there is a way out, that you are not just stranded on an island of my emotions. There is sense of purpose that comes with having a plan, and as long as you stick to it, you can trust that things will only get better. The more you look at it, you see a reconnection with your ability to “get a hold” of yourself and your emotions. It encourages you to make your vision for life concrete and to identify the tasks that you need to complete in order to reach there. It is straightforward and possibly anchoring in the midst of emotional chaos.

What about it helps?

When you find yourself surrounded by stuckness, the idea of a linear path out of it can be comforting. Like the silver lining on the dark clouds of overwhelm. The checklist lays down a series of tasks that promises to put you in control of your emotions. For instance, the pain and the recurring thoughts of an ex and a breakup can distract you from work, averse you to rom-coms, and even make you feel lonely around friends. The checklist attempts to solve this pain by solving the thoughts. “If I look at my attachment style, look at my ex’s red flags, and figure out why the break up ‘really’ happened- then I can understand the pain and if I understand it, the pain will go away.” Just how a maths problem can’t bother you once you have figured it out. It relies on a logical approach that if I solve the situation bringing the upset, then I can also solve the upset.

Unpleasant emotions can catch us like a big wave and throw us off our centre. With the checklist we try to pause ourselves mid-fall, and more often than not we succeed. Somehow, we are able to prevent ourselves from hitting the floor at that moment. You know that you will fall but there is tremendous relief in knowing that it's not now. However, in the long run, it uses up a lot more resources to keep us in that “relief limbo”, that exists right next to constant dread. The checklist is built in a way that emphasises endless coping. Be it in the form of changing yourself to get others to change, identifying all your triggers to constantly safeguard yourself, improving your communication skills to be polite and effectively avoid any possible conflict, and so on.

But what is so bad about endless coping?

While there appears to be some merit to this checklist, these forms of coping may set unrealistic expectations from self and can end up being exhausting. For example, you may be coping with a critical boss by working overtime, always being at the top of your game, and ensuring that they are never displeased. However, this is not sustainable. Instead, it fuels the shame for not being able to keep up with these emotional demands and deliverables.

This checklist may have helped us pull through situations when we could not ride the wave of discomfort, but we may not be in that position anymore. We may now be better equipped to welcome discomfort and sadness. We can build skills that help embrace uncertainty allowing us to not solve ours or others’ unpleasant emotions. Although opening us up to the pain of unpleasant emotions, it also relieves us from the burden of these deliverables.

It is thus important to ask if this tool has stopped serving its purpose of survival, and is now maintaining the same stuckness it promises to get us out of. It nurtures a cycle of higher expectations and greater shame each time the unpleasant emotion comes back. The sinking feeling of always falling behind or constantly keeping up with these deliverables can maintain the unease in our body. Instead of strengthening our belief in self to fall and feel, it might instil greater fear of ever falling.

Does this tool still work for me?

The tireless efforts of analysing, fact finding, and coping can steal our presence from safety, self-assurance, and ease. Before you assess how useful and effective this checklist may be TODAY, I will invite you to answer a few questions:

• Today, what does feeling better mean for me? Does it include space for happiness, overwhelm, safety, discomfort, and all else that I feel?

• What do I need that will help me trust myself for when I do fall?

• While I might be responsible for caring for my emotions, can I really control them?

• What would help me embrace the uncertainty even if that means distancing myself from preventing unpleasant emotions?

If you find that your answers are not in congruence with what your checklist provides, then perhaps, its use in your current life may be limited (and at times even unhelpful).