The big (un)comfy couch | 6.5 min read

The story

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Here's a connection I never thought I'd make.

Think of your mind like a maze.

In school, you're handed a map—reading, writing, ‘rithmetic. There are walls, twists, turns, and a clear exit. At work, it’s the same: tasks, OKRs, quarterly reviews. What you need to know is that someone else built the walls, drew the path, and your job is to walk it.

But, in life, there are bigger questions—ones no curriculum covers, no onboarding deck teaches. Questions like: What do you actually want? What does a life well-lived look like for you?

That's a different maze entirely. No map. No exit sign. Just you, a flickering light, and a door you've been circling for years, trying to find a key to unlock it.

This week, I found a key.

After ten months of job rejections, so many that I stopped feeling rejection, stopped mentioning them to family and friends because I figured I’d be let down again, I got an offer, and, after a few back and forths, I accepted. Signed, sealed, delivered.

But the excitement, the jump-out-of-your-chair, call-your-mom, pour-a-drink feeling, the sigh of relief, the big exhale, never came.

Instead, I felt... administration. Sign the contract, submit the paperwork, and send the thank-you emails. It’s because I also had to figure out what to do with the clients I'd spent ten months building. The business I started out of fear (the emotion) had started to actually work. So, instead of the WOOHOO!, I simply added the task to my long to-do list and checked it off. Even Deb, my wife, wondered if this was what I wanted, “Are you ok? I just want you to be happy.”

A few days later, at my dad's birthday dinner, my sister looked at me and said she never worries about me, I’m resilient, resourceful, and always find a way. She meant it as a compliment, but it made me frustrated.

She's right, I do find a way, and I find it nearly impossible to close the laptop at the end of a busy day because there’s always the next thing. The curse of the solopreneur.

My dad thinks I should go out on my own, “You’re…weird, Ty. People don’t think like you. You don’t fit into the corporate mould.”

Deb wants the stability of a biweekly paycheque, the benefits (especially given some of my health conditions) which I like too. I’m supposed to receive another offer from another company on Monday. In my business, I wrapped up one big client, am nearing the end with another, just got started with a 6-month contract, and am (was) about to kick into high gear with another.

And I'm still processing all of it. Am I proud to have finally landed a job? Am I disappointed in giving up what I’ve worked so hard for? Can I build again or does it all break? I think I could make more money on my own, but I don’t trust myself to follow through, chase the clients, stay on top of my invoices and create that stability.

^{Hot tip: a month ago, Deb and I set up an account I’d fill with random pay from clients and biweekly withdrawals into our joint account. It helped us both.}

The key lies in what my emotions are telling me. Why don’t I trust myself? What happened to make me feel that? Neither my dad nor Deb can help me see within my maze.

I need to sit with these uncomfortable emotions. On a big, un-comfy couch, listen, and feel.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly what this week's issue is about.

Emotions are the map

Most of us were taught to manage our emotions.

Any of these sound familiar? Quiet down. Walk it off. What is wrong with you? Get it together. Be professional. Be rational. Stop whining. At least you have ...

It’s as if feelings are a bug in the system rather than the system itself.

What I’m learning is that emotions are the information. Every single one of them—the uncomfortable ones you push down to deal with later, the big ones that arrive without warning, even the minuscule ones you almost miss—they're all trying to tell you something.

I spoke with Sarah Hameed, a therapist, about why emotions are so damn hard.

Think back to the maze. Emotions are what create the map.

They light up certain corridors—the work that energizes you, the people who fill you up, the moments when you fall deep into a flow state and time disappears.

And they put up walls too, the Sunday dread, the numbness after an achievement you thought would feel bigger, the irritation that shows up when someone hits a nerve you didn't know you had.

The walls, the corridors—they're signals. Emotions aren’t good or bad, right? They’re essential to discovering who we are, what we want and don’t, they’re drawing the lines to our purpose and values.

The problem is that most of us were never taught to read them. Emotion processing, Sarah explained, is a skill—like any other. You aren't born with it; you develop it, and if nobody ever taught you, you're navigating the maze in the dark.

Here's what developing that skill actually looks like:

When an emotion arrives, instead of pushing it away or acting on it immediately, pause and ask: what is this trying to tell me?

Anger, for instance, is almost always a secondary emotion—a comfortable one we reach for because what's underneath is harder to hold: Shame, fear, hurt, feeling disrespected. Anger is external, loud, we can scream, let it out, punch a wall. But underneath it, if you're willing to look, is the real message.

And the message is almost always about your values.

• Feel embarrassed? You care about how you're perceived.

• Feel shame after snapping at someone? You value kindness—and you fell short of it.

• Feel overwhelmed when opportunity keeps arriving? You care deeply about doing things well—and you're afraid of letting people down.

• Feel jealous of someone else's path? It's a signpost pointing at something you want but haven't admitted yet.

• Feel numb when something good happens? That's worth sitting with too.

And comfortable emotions carry messages just as much as painful ones. They tell you what lights you up, gives you energy, what actually matters. They can be what gives your life purpose.

• Feel at peace on a slow Sunday morning? Stillness matters to you more than you admit.

• Feel proud watching someone you mentored succeed? You're a builder of people, not just things.

• Feel genuinely happy in a small, unremarkable moment? That's your life telling you what actually matters.

• Feel energized after a great conversation? Connection isn't a nice-to-have for you. It's a need.

• Feel joy when you're deep in a project? You're someone who needs meaningful work.

That's how emotions build the map.

Not the map someone else drew for you, this is your map, only you can define and build it. If you don’t, someone else is happy to have you help them build theirs.

Your map, the one that tells you what a life well-lived looks like—for you specifically, not in theory.

The hardest part is that you have to develop the muscle first. And like any muscle, it starts small. A mood check at the end of the day. A single question — what else am I feeling right now? A pause long enough to hear the knock at the door before you walk away from it.

Because here's the thing about emotions, according to Sarah:

When you don't answer the door, they keep knocking.

The pebble
Nobody taught us to understand pain

The challenge
Sitting, noticing, drawing your map

Pick a moment — morning coffee, lunch break, or the few minutes before you fall asleep — and ask yourself one question: what did I feel today?

Don't settle for "good" or "bad." Use the vocabulary. Overwhelmed. Jealous. Contented. Vindictive. The more specific the word, the clearer the message.

Then ask why.

Write it down. Even one line. Over time you'll start to see the patterns — the walls of your maze, the corridors that light up, the doors worth opening.

The key was always in your emotions. You just needed the words to find it.

Print the chart (here’s the PDF), give yourself the vocabulary, it’ll make you a stronger builder.