One morning last week, a colleague was feeling really off.
We can tell when people are feeling down. It’s a lot of people a lot of the time.
They (we?) are carrying things around with us. We’re carrying sadness, despair, frustration, hopelessness, depression, loneliness.
We feel for them. We feel with them.
How are you?
“I’m doin’.”
“I'm surviving.”
“Meh.”
This particular morning last week, I asked my colleague to share about it.
So she looked up, moved her fingers off her keyboard, and expressed what was present for her.
As she spoke, she said something BRILLIANT:
"I'm just trying to shove it down so I don't feel this way anymore."
☝️ ☝️ ☝️ ☝️ ☝️
Isn’t that what we do?! We try to shove it down.
With our friends and family who are struggling, we’ll try to help them get over it, move beyond it, or avoid it long enough to at least feel a little bit better.
I thanked her for sharing all of it with me, and then I acknowledged the power and insight behind that one statement.
I said to her about it, "It sounds like you're judging and hating that part of yourself."
Her mouth dropped, and she said: "That's it."
She excused herself to let the tears flow while the emotion released her.
When she came back, she was lighter, happier, and grounded.
Challenging emotions will release us when we are willing to release them.
They stick around because we shove them down.
They stick around because we judge them and ourselves for feeling them.
They become an enemy, something to fear, something to avoid, because we hate them to some extent and therefore hate this part of ourselves.
There's magic in the energy of ALL our emotions, and we miss it when we're busy shoving them down, running from them, or trying to numb them away.
It’s as if we have a scared, depressed, or angry child tugging on us from the inside. Resisting, avoiding, and reacting are not healthy ways to be with those kids.
Invite these parts of yourself up and let them go. You can handle them. They're a part of us in those moments whether we like them or not - and it's much more freeing and beautiful to meet them with love than to continue to meet them with judgment and hate.
Much Love. ❤️
P.S. There are two ways you can commit to leveling-up your emotional awareness and freedom by working with me:
- 1-on-1 coaching
- Mind Mastery training for groups
Comments