When Feeling Good Isn't Good Enough

Why it's important to differentiate between feeling good and feeling well.

I remember receiving an unexpected teaching some years back:

“Beware of feeling good in meditation,” the teacher cautioned us rather solemnly. “You may find yourself clinging to it, chasing after it, becoming a slave to it.”

Well, that’s dramatic, I thought.

It turned out to be quite dramatic, indeed.

Nearing the end of my first meditation retreat, I had a mini breakthrough after much intense continuous practice. At one particular sitting in the evening, I suddenly experienced wave after wave of highly pleasant sensations in my body.

For the first few moments I sat quietly, welcoming the new phenomenon and observing with fascination what was happening within me.

This is it, isn’t it? I thought excitedly. I’ve got it.

And then right on cue, those delightful sensations vanished completely.

I was dismayed by how short-lived the pleasantness of meditation felt. Over the next few sittings, I tried my best to invoke those magical sensations again, but to no avail. In fact, it began to feel downright disappointing and frustrating every time I sat down and closed my eyes.

I began to wonder - how could something that felt so good before feel so bad now?

At the retreat I was transported back to a distinct memory of the first time I had felt the exact same way.

I had just started studying at primary school in Singapore. I was a terribly shy and awkward seven year-old loitering the courtyard of the school campus during recess time one day.

I trailed the sidelines of the basketball court and quietly watched my classmates playing with one another. I was feeling particularly lonely, and also sad that none of them had included me in their games. I couldn’t pluck up the courage to join them, either.

And then I caught sight of the school Vice Principal Mr. C making his usual rounds and walking in my direction.

In an almost trance-like state, an elaborate plan began brewing in my head.

My eyes swept across the floor of the basketball court and located a few pieces of plastic trash. I waited till Mr. C was close enough, and then promptly bent down to pick up the trash and threw them in a bin a few steps away - the entire time making sure that he had caught a clear, full view of my good deed.

For a few moments I froze at the spot, bracing myself for the outcome of my bet.

As I had hoped, Mr. C saw everything, because he approached with a big approving smile on his face and gently patted me on the head.

“That was a good thing you did, picking up the rubbish,” he told me. “Well done. We need more students like you, huh? Good, good.”

I blushed vividly from the praise and affection. As Mr. C turned and walked away, I felt a wave of what I now know as euphoria rushing through my body. I then spent another few light-headed moments recovering from the experience.

And then… nothing.

I looked around to see if anyone else had caught my moment of glory, and realised I was right back at where I had started - quiet, awkward, and lonely amongst a crowd of supercharged, screaming children.

Even back then, deep down in my young, seven year-old psyche, I had sensed that something wasn’t quite right about that good feeling I was supposedly having.

Intuitively, I learned to unpack what that “good” was made up of - there was a sense of satisfaction from having achieved something (praise from an authority figure), and more viscerally a sense of relief - perhaps from the discomfort I was feeling about the social atmosphere.

More interestingly, I somehow knew that feeling “good” that way didn’t actually feel good. As a matter of fact, it felt quite bad.

Because that good feeling did not last. When it faded away, I was once again confronted with the discomfort I so desperately wanted to get rid of.

I had a vague sense that feeling good and feeling bad were perhaps not so different, that they were really two sides of the same coin.

Fast forward to adulthood.

Over the years of growing up and struggling to fit in to the world, I had completely forgotten about this little insight. The only thing that stayed with me was the desire to feel good.

Living as a young adult was all about striving for good feelings, which I restlessly sought through work, relationships, food, and other forms of consumption.

The general mental model was that as long as I felt good, I wasn’t feeling bad.

Never mind that the buzz from drinking beer all night was going to fade away - at least I didn’t have to worry about life for a couple of hours.

It also didn’t matter that my health was suffering, because working late at the office and being labelled a “workaholic” meant that I would get to feel worthy and valued.

Ah…… good feelings.

I lived this way for easily two decades, until I found mindfulness and started learning to meditate.

I began to see that feeling good isn’t good enough, and why that is: