437. The Beauty of Contrast

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 437, The Beauty of Contrast.

This is Better Than Happy, the podcast where we study what the healthiest, most successful people in today’s world think, feel and do. And we leverage this knowledge to create our best lives. Are you ready, little bird? Let’s fly.

Hello everyone, welcome to the pod as we like to say in the biz. Have you guys found Amy Poehler’s new podcast? Amy Poehler, one of my all-time favorite comedians and women in the world. She has a podcast called Say More and she’s Dr? Sheila with a question mark. Not a real therapist, but anyway, it’s hilarious and it’s a brilliant satire on the world of therapy and coaching. And sometimes I hear her voice in my head when I’m recording things. But it does have some language in it, so just be forewarned, but pretty funny, pretty funny podcast.

Okay, we’re going to talk about the beauty of contrast today. Make sure though, that you’ve got your holiday gift for everybody on your list, Better Than Happy, the Masterclass, $59. We’re going to be together on Zoom live. When you purchase this, by the way, the person you buy it for gets to go and register themselves, and they can pick from different times to make sure it fits in their schedule. And if they like the podcast or the book, Better Than Happy, they’re going to have their minds blown and they’re going to love you for buying them a masterclass.

So head to jodymoore.com/gift and just check as many people off your list with that as you can.

So when it comes to contrast, some of you have heard me talk about the 50/50 concept the way Brooke Castillo has created it and explained it. I like to think about it not just as this is the way of it, half the time life is great and everything’s going well and you’re feeling happy. And half the time it’s all going to heck and you’re feeling terrible and you’re in pain and that’s the way of it. That’s a dumbed down generalized version of the 50/50.

But what I want to talk to you about today is the layers of it and part of that includes why 50/50 is not just the way of it. It is actually the way we would want it. It is the most beautiful, amazing experience. Because the first thing people always say to me when they learn this, they push back, “Why does it have to be 50/50? I’d like it to be 80% positive and I’ll take 20% negative because I know there has to be some, but 50, come on.” And what I say is, “No. We actually do want that for many reasons.”

But the one I want to go into today is about the beauty that it actually creates. So I’m going to talk you through it a little bit and then I have a story I want to share with you about an experience I had that just made this whole concept land for me. So I call this podcast Better Than Happy, partly because of this idea that a happy life sort of feels a little bit shallow and fake, if it were just happy. Did anybody ever watch Ted Lasso? Speaking of language, there’s a lot of language in that show also.

But the character, Ted Lasso. He’s amazing, we love him. I love Ted Lasso. But he for so long, for so much of the time I should say is happy. He’s just this happy go lucky, everything’s good, let’s look on the bright side kind of guy. And on the one hand, it’s really lovable but it comes across almost childlike. There’s something that feels sort of naive about it or that feels like it’s lacking in depth about it. And later in the seasons we get some insight into the depth of Ted Lasso and how he actually does struggle with depression and things like that.

And this is all a fictional story, anyway, but my point is that character, the sort of naïve, it’s an immaturity, there’s something lacking in just that really happy go lucky, let’s just smile and life is positive kind of attitude. And I think we sense that. I think that we sense it’s lacking in some kind of depth or beauty if the balance is off a little bit. And I think what we’re seeking instead, what feels the best to us rather than just it’s a great day isn’t it, is a life that is full. I can’t quite put my finger on the right word but full is one word that comes to my mind.

Complete, you know that feeling of, wow, everything just feels complete right now? Do you have these moments? I’ve been having a lot of these moments in the last couple of weeks, I should say. I think just because of some work I’m doing on myself. The way I’m just really challenging myself to think bigger and to set some new goals and to question some things I’ve been doing and things. It’s giving me the opportunity to have these moments of awe and satisfaction and abundance. And it’s like, wow, what a miracle.

Now, these moments don’t last very long for me. They’re very fleeting. And they’re at the oddest times. I’m just standing in my kitchen and I just loaded up the dishwasher and wiped down the counters and the kitchen is clean and I lit a candle and everything smells good. And for a moment I get this glimpse of this is an awesome life I’m living. And it’s not because everything’s perfect and it’s not because everything’s the way I wish it was and it’s not because I don’t have huge goals I want to go get.

It’s because there is imperfection but then there are moments of perfection, moments of peace. And it’s the contrast, the reason it feels so good to do the dishes and wipe down the counter and clean up the kitchen is because a few minutes ago the kitchen was such a disaster and I kept walking in going, “Look at this kitchen, we’ve got to clean it.” Now it’s clean and for just a moment, and it’s about more than the kitchen for me. It’s about all the other things going on in my life as well but the kitchen is just one outward manifestation of it.

For just a moment, I feel like this is a good life we’re living. This is awesome this life I’m living. And my argument to you today is that those moments come because of the contrast that precedes them, and that will come again. I like to think about miracles. I think that our lives are full of tiny, little miracles, sometimes big miracles, but certainly full of a lot of small miracles that are happening all the time.

I started listening to the text, reading but reading through audible the text of A Course in Miracles. It is a long book. It’s almost 700 pages and it’s a 32 hour audiobook. But I decided I want to go listen to it. And I’ve just barely started, so I don’t know, let’s see if I make it through. But one of the things they talk about in the introduction is that miracles are the natural way of things. Miracles occur regularly and daily. They are the natural way of things. And in fact if miracles aren’t occurring, something has gone wrong.

And I love thinking about our lives that way, as full of miracles but again, I’m only able to recognize them because of the contrast of the lack of the miracle that was present previously. So it reminds me, this whole concept reminds me of a song by Eminem and Rihanna called Love the Way You Lie. This song, which came out many years ago is such a great example of the beauty of the contrast because you have Eminem with his angry white boy rapping style that’s very fast and aggressive. And the language and the delivery and everything has this harsh edge to it.

And then you have Rihanna’s beautiful voice on top of it. And the two go back and forth and sometimes they overlap with one another. And they’re telling a story of a couple who’s struggling and fighting. But there’s the contrast of both their voices and their style and even their approach and their view on this challenge that they’re having. And it’s such a powerful song because of the contrast, that’s what makes it kind of magical.

Who would have thought to put Eminem and Rihanna together in a song? Somebody did and it creates a really beautiful experience. And that is actually how our lives are. I love a good Rihanna song and I like Eminem too. But you put the two together and there’s something magical because of how sort of opposite their styles and their voices are. This is how our lives are as well. So a full life includes both joy, happiness and what many of us call hurt. When we talk about emotional pain people say, “It just hurts.”

It’s also full of pleasure and pain. This is true emotionally and physically. We have emotional highs and lows, emotional pleasure and pain and we have physical pleasure and pain as well. And that’s what creates the full experience, this contrast. So if you’re not feeling that, if you’re not noticing miracles in your life, it may be that you need to invite in more joy. That you need to learn to be less negative in your head and in your focus and in what you’re aware of and the meaning that you’re giving to things around you.

It might mean that you need to invite more positivity. It might also mean though, that you need to allow more of the negative. You need to give yourself space to feel bad at times, to be discouraged or to be frustrated or to be sad or to be whatever negative emotion you’re feeling. You might need to make some space for that and not push it away or repress it or hide it with a positive attitude or be mad about it and tell yourself you shouldn’t feel it.

There can be all kinds of reactions to our negative emotions that don’t serve us, some are more detrimental than others. Sometimes we try to escape them through different means. But the allowing of it will create this feeling of miracles and moments of awe, is the only word I can think to describe it is awe. So like I said, I have a quick story I want to share with you that I think illustrates this pretty well.

This was just a few weeks ago, I want to say. I was on an airplane and just a couple of rows behind me was a young woman who looked to be about 12 or 13 years old. And as we took off, she got upset and her parents were sitting on either side of her. And she was kind of crying out. Now, we all hear babies and little kids crying out on airplanes sometimes. But this was a girl who was again 12 or 13 years old, so it was very loud and it was very dramatic and it was kind of frightening to all of us on the plane. You don’t want to have anything too chaotic happening on a plane nowadays.

And her parents were trying their best to console her and quiet her. And so for me anyway, and I’m guessing everybody around us there was the “That girl’s really loud.” But even stronger than that kind of annoyed feeling was I feel so bad for her parents because I’m sure they’re stressed right now. And we all know or I knew anyway, they’re doing their best. I’m not mad at them. I hope they aren’t worried about what people are thinking but I feel for them because I can only imagine what they feel.

And also this curiosity of I wonder what she’s so upset about. Of course, they were forcing her to stay buckled in her seatbelt and she really wanted to get up. And this was all during takeoff. And the flight attendants couldn’t do anything to help her because they were buckled in as well. And it wasn’t until we got pretty much to full elevation that she finally calmed down. And then the flight attendants were able to get her a drink and she was able to get up and walk around for a minute, which seemed to help and then she calmed down.

And throughout the flight she walked around quite a bit. She seemed to be doing a lot better. And then when it was time to land, again a lot of drama, a lot of her not wanting to be buckled up. And a lot of fear and a lot of loud noises and a lot of stress, it seemed for everybody involved. Well, after we landed safely, I overheard the girl’s father talking to somebody nearby, explaining that she is autistic and that upon take off, her ears were plugged. And she didn’t know how to get them unplugged and it was painful and she was scared.

And anyway, so then this girl was standing there waiting to get off the plane. And this young girl, this 12 or 13 year old autistic girl starts walking around the plane, going up to every person, looking them in the eye and saying, “I’m sorry.” And then she would go to the next person and say, “I’m sorry.” And then the next person, “I’m sorry.” And it was so tender. Everybody was like, “Oh, sweetie, it’s okay, you did such a good job.” And she was just apologizing to everyone.

And I hate to speak for everyone on the plane, but I dare say we all just felt so much love and compassion for that girl and for her parents. And, man, I just remember thinking that was a really powerful experience. I’m so glad I got to witness that for just a moment. I got to feel the love and compassion of a whole bunch of strangers for this girl who is amazing and her parents who are amazing.

And we wouldn’t have felt that, I might have looked at her, and noticed her and felt a little love and appreciation for her. But nothing like what I felt because of the contrast of the challenge that happened during the flight. The challenge contrasted by her humility and her apologizing, which none of us, we were like “You don’t need to apologize, sweetie. You did awesome.” That is the human experience. That is what makes us feel complete and satisfied and abundant and recognize the miracle that this life is.

So I just want you to ask yourself, if I’m not feeling miracles, if I’m not feeling that kind of joy, do I need to increase the positive factor? And for some of you, that’s true. For some of you, you just have really negative thoughts and that’s okay. I can help you with that if you want help with that. Don’t judge yourself. Don’t be mad at yourself for it. Don’t be ashamed of it. Let’s just work on it.

And for some of you, you need to allow more of the negative. And the negative might just be allowing your own natural discomfort with the world and dissatisfaction with things. It might also be pushing yourself to try some things that are scary and new and getting outside your comfort zone. Sometimes that’s what the negative looks like. But if you’re not feeling that, it’s probably because you need space for one or the other because then things become magical.

Alright, thanks for joining me today everybody. I love you so much. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Take care.

Coaching changed my life and I’ve watched it change the lives of thousands of men and women since, but is it right for you? You’ll only know by giving it a try. Try it out today at jodymoore.com/trial.