…Are each teachers trying to instill a valuable lesson about your inner workings.
And you’ll keep getting the same lesson over and over until you actually pay attention, study, and pass their tests.
P.s. More on this here: How To Deal With People Who Annoy, Frustrate, and/or Upset You.
Have you ever struggled and thought to yourself: “Why am I even complaining about this when millions have it SO much worse than me…”
Recognize that this is a toxic thought.
It essentially translates into: “My struggles are invalid and it’s wrong for me to feel how I do.”
…Which naturally leads to emotional suppression, message(s) ignoring, and a worsening of overall state. This is no way to solve a struggle.
Struggles are solved when you add confrontation (with the emotion(s)), subtract comparison, and give all of your feelings equal space to communicate the message(s) your body purposefully sent via them.
Telling yourself they’re wrong for being there doesn’t change the fact that they’re there.
Letting them fulfill their purpose—does. It allows them to move through you and out of your system—to wherever it is that fulfilled feelings go.
Send them there. Don’t deny, suppress, and exasperate them deeper inside, here.
We all wear masks.
…It isn’t a bad strategy.
It’s when we don’t take our masks off that the strategy turns bad.
We need to give our “face” space to breathe.
My question for you is: are you giving your face enough space to breathe?
What people say:
What I hear:
Undesired emotions left untapped, swell.
The more those undesired emotions swell, the worse they become.
With mindfulness, we can tap into that swollen reservoir and give those emotions the path they need to flow.
This path allows the body to drain those unpleasant feelings, energy-guzzling thoughts, and hazy perspectives that make the emotions so undesirable.
But, worth noting: this doesn’t make them “bad” or “negative.” For the very nature of an undesired emotion is to signal to us that something is wrong.
And knowing that something is wrong is vital for our survival as humans.
So pay your undesired emotions some mind. Give them the light of your attention. Allow them some space in your day. The longer the emotion(s) get(s) ignored—the worse that “wrong” thing will get.
Remember, once they feel heard, they will flow.
Which will allow space for the opposite type of emotion to grow.
And this is what allows for the real transformations to take place.
If we don’t give poignant emotions space to move, they collect and become static—like a lake.
This is a problem because lakes have no means of filtration. They just collect and hold—trash, toxicity, diseases, and all. This isn’t a good formula for life.
Life is movement. Death is no movement.
The problem escalates, of course, when what opens up into our lake is a sewage drain that pours in more toxicity via news, media, gossip, drama, and hate.
…And then we wonder why we can become so overwhelmingly anxious, irritable, and befuddled inside?!
The solution, then, is to become an emotional river instead.
Rather than allowing what’s emotionally swelling to be suppressed, we should find ways we can give those feelings space to move.
Space that doesn’t come from distraction (anything that pulls our attention away from our emotional awareness is a distraction), but space that comes from a place of careful inward mindfulness.
Writing, meditating, therapeutic conversations, etc—are all great examples.
And just a few minutes a day can give emotions the space they need to keep flowing through (and eventually out from) our systems.