It’s okay to be okay.
I don’t know about you all, but sometimes it feels like feeling okay is dangerous. What do I mean by “feeling okay” you ask? I mean that you don’t feel angry, sad, anxious, scared, etc. You just feel okay. When someone asks how you are doing and you say “fine” and you actually mean it. It doesn’t mean that your heart is full of joy and excitement. Or that you are the happiest you have ever been. It just means that you are in the world today and you feel good about yourself.
Okay, so now that we have the definition out of the way, why am I talking about this? Well because I noticed in my work as a therapist, and my experience as a human being, that sometimes feeling okay feels scary. Sometimes I wonder, “when is the shoe going to drop?” Or I’ll start to look for reasons to not be “okay” like bills that need to be paid, or COVID, or racism, or the fact that I haven’t accomplished all my goals for the day/month/year. It’s almost like being “okay” isn’t okay.
I wanted to write this post to remind us all that it is okay to just be okay and that looking for a reason to not be okay robs us of enjoying the present moment. We so often are working so hard to find peace and happiness and yet when it finds us we miss it because we are worrying about when the feeling will leave us. Sure there will always be very real things to worry about. And that’s okay too! But taking a moment to enjoy feeling okay, or peaceful, or content is not selfish and does not mean you are ignoring the horrors of the world or the struggles in your personal life. It means that you are taking time to find balance in existing as humans and to recharge for when life’s struggles show themselves. Think of it as floating in the water after swimming for a while. We all need a break to just be okay.
If this post resonates with you, I would encourage you all to reflect on how you recognize when you are okay and how you celebrate or honor those moments. Also, in what ways are you engaging in activities that make it easier to access moments of “okayness”?
So as a gentle reminder to whoever needs to hear it:
It’s okay to be okay.
