Empty Boat's Feel Good. Do Good.
Everything I share here comes from my mentor, who wishes to remain unnamed. I simply call him Empty Boat.
A few years ago, he gave me a message that has since become the anchor of my life:
Feel Good. Do Good.
It sounds almost too simple. However, over the years, I discovered that it contains an entire philosophy of living.
Years ago, I believed that Doing Good would make me Feel Good. Be it helping others, volunteering, or contributing to meaningful causes, all these brought me satisfaction and made me feel good. But I didn’t notice a subtle trap in it until it consumed me.
When our inner well-being and feeling of satisfaction depend on constantly doing more, we eventually find ourselves chasing a satisfaction that is short-lived. We do more and more to retain it, until it eventually leads to burnout. This is exactly what happened to me years ago, before Empty Boat flipped the way I lived.
Empty Boat said something drastic.
You don’t have permission to do anything until you feel good and restore your inner state.
It felt like a big blow for someone who was constantly busy, and it changed my world.
Feel Good. And. Then. Do Good.
I asked him, how long should I wait until I start doing something? How does it even work? He simply said I will know when I can act.
Practically, it meant pausing several things that I was doing. Instead of my usual Do Good → Feel Good cycle, I spent a lot of time taking care of my body, mind and heart, resting well, and spending time with family.
It wasn’t an endless waiting for an ideal state of being. I realized that this perfect state of feeling good without any external validation is already present but not always accessible. I started doing things in small steps while retaining my awareness of this state.
When I feel nourished, grounded, and at peace, my actions no longer arise from the need to prove myself or complete myself. They arise naturally from generosity and gratitude. The quality of such actions changes because they arise from a completely different place.
What is “Feel Good”?
What does “Feel Good” mean? How do I sense it and practice it?
Feeling good is not constant happiness or pleasure. It is a state of Shantam, an inner peace, that rests on three foundations.
1. Nourishment
Caring for the body, the mind, and the heart so that they have what they genuinely need.
2. Kindness
Accepting and loving myself as I am without any need for comparison, complaint, or self-judgment.
3. Compassion
Having the courage to lovingly face and transform the parts of myself that no longer serve me. This is the courage and strength to heal the parts of my being that are hurting as I clean them up.
What I learned is that it’s not a one-time effort to be in Shantam, but like gardening, it’s constant everyday work to ensure these three foundations are in place. In a world that constantly pulls us toward urgency, distraction, comparison, and exhaustion, it is easy to lose this sacred space.
What is “Do Good”?
It’s when these three pillars that I actively safeguard are in good shape and I’m in a state of shantam, the feeling of calmness, that the fourth pillar of Passion arises naturally.
4. Passion
This passion is the natural desire to do, born out of gratitude and generosity. It doesn’t carry anxiety or pressure, and yet it’s not passivity or waiting for things to appear on their own. It’s an active doing without being consumed by fear, anxiety, or any form of lacking.
Protecting the Source
Today, everything I do comes out of the “Feel Good. Do Good.” way of living. I’m not perfect, and I still drift away from Shantam, my Feel Good state, for brief periods. What has changed is that I quickly become aware that I have drifted.
I see my greatest responsibility as not merely protecting my time or my work. It is to protect the quality of my inner state from which I act, and restore it when I have drifted away.
Dharana.ai is my attempt to keep this practice for myself, and an attempt to create practices and tools that help people experience the joy of doing from the state of Shantam.
My passion today is to help people measure their day not by how much they accomplished, but by how often they acted from a state of Shantam.