I was talking with some people from my connection group the other day and it seemed as though many of us struggle with one main thing - feeling emotions.
Oftentimes, we tend to not feel our emotions (sadness, anger, hurt, grief, etc.) for one of two possible reasons:
It's inconvenient timing. We have other, seemingly more important things to worry about.
We don't want to feel the pain that comes with those emotions.
When I heard some of them talking about how hard it is to feel those emotions, I shared with them something that was shared with me a few months ago: "you gotta feel to heal".
If we choose to not feel our emotions at the time they come up, or in a short time after, those same emotions are going to come up later, at an even more inconvenient time.
I think it's so hard to feel our emotions in a world that is so unforgiving sometimes. It's hard when there's an overwhelming amount of people that think mental health is a joke. It's hard when you know that the professor won't give you a second extension of that paper. It's hard when it's a holiday and your family questions why you aren't happy.
In these kinds of situations, it's hard to explain to people what you feel and why you feel it. So, you're left with two options:
Explain to people what's going on - which in reality isn't always a good option. They might not understand it or maybe you're just not ready to share those feelings with them yet, and that's okay!
Set those emotions aside and feel them at a more convenient time.
This brings us right back to my original point. You gotta feel to heal. If you don't feel your emotions at the moment, they're going to end up coming up later at a worse time, possibly ruining relationships along the way. So feel that anger - feel that sadness - feel that grief. No matter how much it sucks to feel those things, you're going to heal from them.
I think for a while, I fell into a mindset where I convinced myself that the happiness and the good things I was finally feeling again were only temporary. In all fairness, I wasn't wrong. But I had such a long streak of feeling all the bad things, it had become my new normal.
The truth: nothing's all the time. Good things never last, but neither do the bad things. Everything is temporary! It's just hard to recognize those things and feel them at the moment.
I had to pull myself out of that state of mind and begin to cherish whatever it was I was feeling at that moment. I know what you're thinking, "why would you want to cherish the bad things?" The answer is pretty simple - when you cherish the bad things, it's only going to make you so much more thankful for the good things. When we live in a world that is so unforgiving and harsh, you have to give yourself grace and be thankful for all the moments.
Nothing's all the time.
Love always,
Kenzie <3
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