life was never meant to feel good all the time.

There was a time in my life when I thought struggle meant failure.

If things felt heavy, I assumed I was doing something wrong. If I was overwhelmed, I believed I’d lost my alignment. If I was sad or anxious or flat, I thought I wasn’t healing hard enough, or fast enough. I didn’t yet understand that this too was part of it.

Because somewhere along the way, I had absorbed the message that if I was doing life “right,” I should feel good. I should be grateful. I should be positive. I should be at peace, always. That anything less than that meant something was broken in me.

But I’ve lived long enough now, and worked with enough people, to know that this isn’t the truth. Life was never meant to feel good all the time. It was never meant to be all light.

There will be seasons of joy. Of laughter, ease, and open-hearted connection. There will be moments that take your breath away in the best possible way. There will be days where everything feels aligned, spacious, expansive. And those moments are beautiful.

But there will also be the other days. The ones that feel messy, uncertain, exhausting. The ones where grief lingers at the edges of everything. The ones where anxiety clutches at your chest or where numbness settles in and you can’t quite reach yourself.

Not because you’ve failed. Not because you’re broken. But because you’re human.

And to be human means to feel it all.

When we expect life to feel good all the time, we set ourselves up to believe that something is wrong when it doesn’t. We see our pain as a problem, our struggles as signs we’ve veered off the path. But what if they’re not?

What if the hard moments are just as special as the soft ones?

What if grief and joy were never meant to cancel each other out, but to exist side by side?

What if contrast is not only inevitable, but essential?

Because here’s the truth... if you numb yourself to pain, you numb yourself to joy too. If you avoid grief, you dampen your ability to feel deep love. If you rush through discomfort, you miss the wisdom it holds.

The most powerful shifts I’ve ever experienced, both in my own healing and in the work I hold with others, have come through being willing to sit in the in-between. In the rawness. In the questions without answers.

Not trying to rush out of it. Not trying to find the lesson too quickly. Not pretending to be fine when I wasn’t. Just being real with what is. Letting it unfold in its own time.

And yes, that’s hard. Especially in a world that tells us happiness is the goal. That the best version of us is the one that smiles the most, achieves the most, radiates positivity at all times.

But I don’t want a life that looks good on the outside and feels hollow underneath.

I want a life that feels true.

A life that makes room for the tears and the tenderness, the mess and the magic. A life where I don’t have to shrink or hide or fake it. A life where I can hold both joy and grief in the same breath and know that neither makes the other less valid.

When we stop chasing constant goodness, we create space to just be. We allow ourselves to honour the ache without trying to fix it. We let our nervous systems rest. We give ourselves permission to be human, not perfect.

And something beautiful happens there.

We start to breathe differently. More fully. More freely.

We begin to understand that our worth isn’t measured by how light we feel. That our power isn’t found in always being okay. That our resilience isn’t built through avoidance, but through tenderness.

We learn that the good moments don’t erase the hard ones, and the hard ones don’t erase the good. They live together. They shape each other. They deepen us.

And maybe that’s the point.

Not to create a life that feels good all the time, but one that feels true. One that holds us honestly through every season. One that teaches us how to love ourselves even in the shadow. One that doesn’t require performance or perfection, but presence.

This is what wholeness looks like.

This is where peace is found, not in the absence of struggle, but in no longer needing to fight yourself when it arises.

So if you’re in a season that feels heavy, please don’t mistake it for failure. Don’t make yourself wrong for being human. Let this moment be part of your becoming. Let it shape you with love, not shame.

You’re allowed to feel all of it. The joy. The grief. The in-between. You don’t have to pick one.

You were never meant to be all light. You were meant to be real.

And that… that is more than enough.

With love & support,

Shorina | Mindful Soul Collective

Holistic Counsellor, Wellbeing Coach & Business Mentor

---

If this resonated, I’d love to support you further! You’ll find everything you need, from free resources to information on working with me, right here.