Do you feel dissatisfied? Try this.

Things were great. Well, everything looked great on paper, but yet I wanted more. I wanted to be happy. I felt dissatisfied. So I started watching ‘dissatisfaction’ – you know when you look around and you think that you should be

happy, but you. Are. Not. Happy. Nothing is really wrong, but you feel dissatisfied. A master coach encouraged me to look at the feeling of ‘dissatisfied’, because sometimes it’s real and sometimes it’s not. Pretty sneaky, huh? So here’s what I found.

Real Dissatisfaction vs. the Habit of Dissatisfaction

Real dissatisfaction feels like being off-track. Not being true to myself. Not knowing who I am.

The habit of dissatisfaction is like this low-level ache and that’s the lizard brain (as Martha Beck calls it). It feels more like ‘something’s wrong with me’– that I need to BE someone different. It has a different quality that feels more like being beaten up by the lizard, or the critical voice in my head. 

Real dissatisfaction feels more like I’m not home— I’m from somewhere else and it feels more like there’s something that’s calling to me, and I’m not in the right place– but I hear the call. When I hear this call, I’m looking around, search, knowing that there is a different feeling. I know there is something better. This is real dissatisfaction. Knowing the feeling that there is something far better- for example how it feels to live in magic and then going back to living the life that is not magical. I know it exists now and that is real dissatisfaction. Real dissatisfaction is knowing you are not in your integrity.

Story of Dissatisfaction

Then there is the story of dissatisfaction. It’s like when you’ve made a list of all the things that are your heart’s desires, and you have this amazing delicious list. When you look at your life and you look at your list, there is still a voice that beats you up. The lizard starts talking trash.

“You can’t do THAT! How could you? You are not good enough! What will people think?!”

That’s the story of dissatisfaction. However, if your list of successes and desires are not true to you, not in alignment with your authentic self, that do not come from your higher self, THAT is real dissatisfaction.

What does it feel like in the body? The real dissatisfaction is the feeling of being in someone else’s body or living someone else’s life or tightness in the chest that’s just so slight like there’s a band wrapped around my heart.

The story of dissatisfaction, the story from ego or the lizard, is more like a sadness, or something wrong, that can be traced back to the voices telling me I should be different. It is heavy, but it is not real. This is not living in reality. This is not living in the present. The story of dissatisfaction shows up with worrying, urgency, and living in the past/future. It is not the present. It is not my True Self.

This is so interesting to me because often I can get caught in believing the story of dissatisfaction. Believing the story that is not true. And then staying in that habit of dissatisfaction. When that happens, I start making decisions based on the lizard and the stories! And really, the decisions I want to make are based on my heart and soul- my Truth. This is when I start shopping, eating, facebooking too much, or looking for new jobs. Years ago alcohol was in the mix, that was one of my lead distractors. We feel dissatisfied, but it doesn’t necessarily come from our integrity or Truth

Try this when you feel dissatisfied:

So dear friend, notice. Is this your heart calling, your soul’s wish? Is this your integrity speaking up? Or is this the critical voice in your head beating you up for something that is exactly what you’ve been asking for, or something that you already are?

Try sitting with the dissatisfaction- I mean getting quiet and noticing all the pieces, feelings, and emotions that arise. Stop Facebook, drinking, eating, watching TV for just a few minutes. Find some silence sweet one, and notice what comes up.

1. What do you feel in the body? Where do you feel it? What is the size? Write it down and describe in as much detail as possible.
2. What is the critical voice saying? Those thoughts are windows into the physical sensations of the body as well as why we might feel the emotions (see #3)
3. What emotions are you feeling? Can you see the link between the thoughts and the emotions? The body sensations?
4. See if you can sit with all of what you noticed…you don’t need to change anything. Just notice. And give yourself as much compassion as possible.    

Then dear one, let me know what you see.

Peace and Satisfaction,

Rebecca