Am I doing this right?

At the end of a weekend-long retreat, we were invited to bring to mind a word or phrase arising out of our experience. I was surprised that this not-particularly- spiritual thought came to mind and felt like a hard-won piece of wisdom:

“Just because it doesn’t feel good, doesn’t mean I’m doing it wrong.”

Sometimes prayer and meditation does feel great. When I sit down for quiet meditation, I often rise with a greater sense of peace. When I pour my heart out in prayer, sometimes I feel lighter, or more connected to the divine. But at this particular retreat, I felt a lot of things, and most of them weren’t lovely. I felt grumpy, I felt stuck, I felt sad. What was I doing wrong?

My son in the midst of a particularly difficult teething period

As kids we are raised with rewards and punishments. If you get good grades you get praise, if you get detention you get frowns, or maybe you get grounded. At work you might get a raise or a promotion if you are productive, you might get fired if you don’t meet your quota. I used to think my cavity-free history at the dentist was due to my virtue, until my friend who meticulously brushed her teeth 3 times a day had her 3rd root canal- it turns out her soft teeth were just genetic. She wasn’t being punished for “doing it wrong”; she was doing the best she could at being a person with soft teeth.

As we mature in our spiritual practices, we’ll notice that there is not always a direct relationship between what we do and how good we feel. A practice that may give us great peace one day might be colored by irritability and distractions the next. I felt apologetic, and judged myself harshly on those occasions, but as my retreat came to a close, I was relieved to realize that grumpiness is not a sign that the spirit has deserted us, or that our practice is not good enough. It is simply that we are humans, and we are capable of a vast spectrum of feelings. The spirit is with us in both the moments of bliss, and the grumpy moments of distraction.

I found this liberating; I had done all the things I could do, and still felt irritable, but when I realized that “just because it doesn’t feel good doesn’t mean I’m doing it wrong” a weight lifted off my shoulders.

The other day my son was complaining of leg pain that we couldn’t explain. My husband remembered when he was a teenager he had mysterious growing pains. Growing is a good thing to do that doesn’t always feel good. Why do we feel horrible when we have the flu? Because our body is using so many resources to fight the virus. Healing is the right thing to do, but it doesn’t always feel good. Grieving is an incredibly important thing to do that doesn’t feel good. Standing up for yourself. Being present with someone who is suffering. Being open to unpleasant truth. All these things are really important parts of being alive, of being on the spiritual path. And none of them feel good.

Sometimes unpleasant feelings do call for a change in what we are doing. If you sat on your foot until it became numb, go ahead and move your foot. If you drank too much and have a hangover, you might make a note for the future. If you had words with someone and regret what you said, it’s probably time to seek reconciliation and forgiveness. But if you have opened your heart in meditation or prayer with honesty and integrity, if you have entered a spiritual practice where before there was always refreshing water and now it is dry, and you find yourself asking “what did I do wrong? Why don’t I feel comfort and solace?” I invite you to remember: “just because it feels bad doesn’t mean I’m doing it wrong. ”

Judgement and blame don’t tend to bring us closer to peace, closer to the divine. Instead they seem to shut us down. If, as Jesuit Theologian Walter Burghardt suggests, contemplation is “the long loving look at the real” we are encouraged to stay with the unpleasant as well as the pleasant, without judgement, without guilt, because all of it is real. When it doesn’t feel good, try a long loving look at the reality you feel in that moment. Wherever you are, the spirit is there too.