– Why We “Screw It Up” When Things Are Going Well: A Nashville Individual Counseling Perspective

WHY WE “SCREW IT UP” WHEN THINGS ARE GOING WELL: A NASHVILLE INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING PERSPECTIVE

It’s an age-old adage most people are accustomed to experiencing: Just when things are going their best, we do something to “screw it up.” Why is this so? Is it just Murphy’s Law? It is karma? Is it just coincidence? Can the world just not handle that much goodness? Perhaps the answer actually does lie in the latter, just with a little twist: Can we not handle that much goodness?

Through Nashville individual counseling, I see so many people who come in to my office to talk about a great moment or event or situation they were having, only to have it ruined by some action or behavior of their own. They are always distraught and overwhelmed by the feeling of ruining something that was so good. They are always also so confused as to why it happened and what is “wrong” with them that it did happen. I believe we have more control over circumstances like these than we think. And I believe it’s far less negative than we think.

There is a belief that as human beings, we are far more scared of our goodness than our “badness.” Said another way, we are more comfortable with pain than with pleasure. I know this to be true in my own life, and I have seen it countless times in the therapy room. When things are going well, really well, we don’t know what to do.   We feel fragile and vulnerable. When things are going really well, we lose our comfortability with cynicism and sarcasm. When things are going well in our lives, we bump up against the notion that life might actually work out for us. This is a terribly scary, vulnerable, innocent, child-like thought. As adults, aren’t we taught that life is hard and painful and scary? Most of us have experienced enough of life to believe this is the main truth.

Through Nashville individual counseling, I have experienced people as far more comfortable with pain and heartache, than they are with joy and pleasure. Even though this might seem counterintuitive, it makes sense to me and parallels my experience of clients in therapy. As such, when things are going well for us, I believe we sabotage these experiences in a way that brings them crashing down around us. To be fair, I believe our sabotage happens predominantly in the unconscious and subconscious realm: meaning we don’t realize we are doing it in the moment. But that is the hope of therapy. Therapy can help us recognize that these “screw it up” moments are actually calculated attempts to proactively ruin a beautiful scenario, so that it feels like we are more in control of our life than we really are. By in large, when we screw up a moment on our own, we believe it is far less painful than if someone else screws it up. When we screw it up ourselves, we maintain the illusion of control, thereby allowing a false hope to remain in tact that disappointment doesn’t truly exist.

If you have noticed many moments in your life where goodness is lost through silly or destructive behaviors of your own, then Nashville individual counseling might be helpful for you. If you resonate with the notion that we are far more comfortable with pain than with pleasure, then Nashville individual counseling can help you transform your actions to align with more of the beauty you want to create in the world. Chris Roberts is a licensed professional counselor in Nashville with years of experience helping people live more consistently with their intentions for a better life. Chris would love the opportunity to speak with you more about your concerns.