Have you ever woken up early in the morning with a looming sense of dread? Felt suffocated by life and anxiety that made you feel like the whole world was shaking? Even the things in your life that normally bring you joy couldn’t lift you out of that heaviness and worried that the feeling would last forever? I have.
I always remind myself that this will pass – this emotion, the darkness, situation, event and the sense that it was all too much to handle.
It always passes.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to understand that the dark feelings are not meant to be feared, they are meant to lift me into deeper places within myself. How do we allow for the darkness when it feels like focusing on the heaviness will bring more gloom to our lives? There’s an abundance of self-help advice and good intentioned people that project the idea that if we focus on the positive or load our minds with affirmations our lives will change for the better. In part that’s true, and in part that can be incredibly unhealthy.
If we focus on what we have, we get to experience the bounty of our lives. but we may end up disengaging from emotions that feel too painful to hold. How do we spotlight the good in our lives without neglecting the emotions and experiences that are tough, uncomfortable or terrifying? We need to create a space for the good and the bad emotions to harmonize.
I think the biggest disservice we can do to ourselves and others is wanting to move past pain quickly and just focus on what’s going well in our/their lives. When we do that to ourselves or project that onto others it can create more pain and anguish. Why is it OK to focus on the good but not OK to wallow in the pain? Depending on the experience, whether it’s trauma, loss of life, illness, injury, etc., it can take months or years to process. Allowing ourselves to feel is important for our growth and ability to move through challenging emotions.
I think we have to figure out for ourselves when our negative experience has become habitual. Habitual means it’s a repetitive experience you’ve experienced for years . You’ll notice it affecting your relationships, work, energy levels, well-being and desire to engage in the world. When we take the time to deal with ourselves and our difficult emotional experiences, we will experience it affecting our lives in the ways I just stated.
Can we feel and express ourselves while not rushing our experience? Yet develop the self-awareness to notice when the experience has become habitual and is no longer serving us? Hard emotions are part of our growth and the way we develop wisdom and compassion for ourselves and others. If we hold beyond a certain point to our pain, we lose the growth and stay in the misery.
By feeling and expressing the hard things and the beautiful emotions, we prevent them from going dormant in our bodies. Finding ways to do that builds freedom because we allow for self-expression and we have a more awakened human experience.
I think we can try to make space for the stuff that happens in our lives that feels awkward and unsightly. My gentle morning practices remind me, in my darkest days, that all is impermanent – even when it feels it will last forever. Waking at the same time every morning, sitting quietly, breathing consciously, and writing down what I’m grateful for (the smallest things like the blanket wrapped around me) helps curate ease in my body when my insides feel like they’re screaming. I give myself permission to see my stress and the good things I’m holding back. When I start to control things around me in an obsessive way I know that I’m not doing well; in my quiet time I can see more clearly how I’m responding in my body and expressing myself to the world.
We often don’t speak to these hard realities because we think feeling the darkness means we’re weak or, worse, broken. But the ability to patiently sit in the darkest places allows us to explore and potentially understand it’s origin. This is the definition of strong.
What are the things you do in your life that allow you to feel grounded and emotionally balanced? If you understand what it is that brings you ease regularly, those practices or choices will always help you find a few moments of peace during the times that feel unmanageable.
with love
Noelle