Why Emotional "Meh" Is Actually a Sign of Health

If I asked you to rate your life on a scale of 1 to 10 right now, where would you put yourself?

Are you flying high after selling your first painting and the feeling of finally claiming yourself as an artist is hitting at an 11? Or are you deep in the grief of losing a child and can't understand why the scale doesn't start at 0 (or negative 10)?

Or are you just...okay. Kind of ho-hum. Grateful for a good job, loving family, safe home to come home to, nothing to complain about really, but also haven't felt truly excited since Yellowstone came back on the air. Say, somewhere around a 7?

Turns out that 7 on the emotional scale is like 98.6° in your physical body.

A 7/10 is, for most people, our "normal" emotional center. Our default happy zone.

Not ecstatic. Not despairing. Just…decent. Fine. Pretty good, actually. But not great.

And there's a reason for that.

In his book Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert explains that, much like our physical immune systems, we humans have a psychological immune system that keeps our emotional well-being within a certain healthy range.

When something throws us off—heartbreak, death, job loss, rough patches—we usually bounce back. Maybe not right away, and often not in ways we could have predicted, but we adapt. We come back to center...eventually.

Our bodies are designed to regulate. Blood pressure, blood sugar, pH, temperature—we’re constantly making tiny adjustments to stay in range. We sweat (a lot if you're like me and in your cougar puberty era [I'm no longer referring to it as perimenopause]), we shiver, we get hungry, we take a nap in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. It’s all incredibly intelligent.

Turns out our emotional systems work the same way. They’re meant to keep us from spiraling too low or launching too high for too long. They want harmony. Equilibrium.

Yet, there’s this message in our culture—especially in the coaching world, on social media, and baked into every slice of our capitalistic pie—that says you’re supposed to feel amazing all the time. Or at least want to feel that way.

If you’re not radiant and magnetic and manifesting miracles on a Monday morning, you must be doing something wrong. You must need another product, program, green smoothie, or self-help strategy to “fix” yourself.

But what if you’re not broken?

What if that 7/10 feeling isn’t a sign you’re settling or falling short but, rather, a signal that your internal systems are working exactly as they should?

Of course, we need hardship to build that psychological immunity. Struggle sharpens us, humbles us, teaches us how to recover. But overload? That’s when systems crash. That’s why we have grief. That’s why trauma derails us. Too much at once, or for too long, and the system can’t reset itself so easily.

(And here is where I want to say if you have been at a 5 or less for months on end, it's time to reach out. Ask for help. Get the support you need, in whatever form that looks like for you. Therapy, a friend's shoulder to cry on, medical intervention, telling your A-hole boss to shove it, leaving your dead-end marriage—take action. And get outside support.)

But most of the time? We’re not in this place of danger. We’re just living.

We’re waking up on a Monday with a little resistance to the week ahead. We’re juggling responsibilities and wondering if it’s okay to want a nap more than a "breakthrough." We’re reaching for a little peace and wondering why it doesn’t look like someone else’s version of joy.

And I want to say—it’s okay.

Maybe the healthiest thing we can do isn’t to chase a constant state of “better” but to learn how to respect the beauty of “enough.” Maybe we’ve become so conditioned to seek peak performance and ✨high vibes✨ that we’ve forgotten how sacred it is just to stabilize.

Feed yourself real food. Move your body in a way that feels good (not punishing). Let the sun hit your skin (without sunscreen for once). Sleep. Walk barefoot in grass. Laugh. Connect with people who remind you who you are. Go to work and do your job well. Unplug sometimes. Make art. Breathe.

And then? Let the rest settle. Let the system do what it was built to do.

Because chasing a 10 every damn day is exhausting. It creates pressure, not peace. And ironically, it can keep us from noticing the quiet goodness that already surrounds us.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t dream, or stretch, or pursue what matters to you. Obviously, I'm a coach because I love helping people do exactly that. But the goal isn’t to escape your current life. The goal is to meet yourself fully inside it.

So if today feels like a 7?

Celebrate that. That’s your system working. That’s your emotional homeostasis. That’s your brain doing exactly what it’s wired to do—protecting you from the extremes and helping you stay centered.

You don’t have to overhaul your life to feel better. Sometimes, you just need to stop trying so hard to feel "amazing." Then you can finally feel good. 

Loving my 7/10 life,

Chazz

student of life. recovering overachiever. coach.