How do you know when to accept your feelings and when to try to change them?
That’s a real question I have that I really don’t have an answer to. To say I struggle with it would be an understatement.
I’ve mentioned about a gazillion times on here that I struggle with anxiety and I pretty much always have. One thing this struggle has taught me is that when anxiety comes, I can’t let it take root. I have to evaluate it, make sure it’s bogus, and then get rid of it. If that process takes more than about 45 seconds, sometimes it will take root and I could be lost in it for days, sometimes years.
So it has become clear to me. Bad feeling = fight it and banish it.
For the longest time, this was exhausting. I had to constantly be on guard and constantly in defense mode. But over the years, it has gotten easier, and I have found I can let up a bit. The anxious feelings come less often, perhaps because of medication perhaps because of coping skills. But still, when it comes, I am ready. I have no choice. If I succumb to it, I fail not only myself but my children.
But then the issue comes up of other uncomfortable feelings. What about when I’m disappointed or sad or angry or stressed? Just like with anxiety, my defenses go up, and I try desperately to defuse the pain. I jump on it and I attack it and I fight with it and I gnaw at it, and I do every single thing I can think of to get rid of it, but sometimes I can’t.
And I think that’s because some of those feelings aren’t like obsessive anxiety. They aren’t skewed. They aren’t distorted. Sometimes there are reasons to be sad and angry and stressed out.
I don’t deal well with that. In fact, sometimes I feel like a fifteen year old girl trapped in a 36 year old woman’s body because I simply feel like I don’t have the coping skills to deal with negative emotions. And so I hide them. I bury them.
But we all know how that turns out. It’s never a good option.
So tonight I sit here confused. Wondering how I should feel and what I should do, and I simply don’t have the answers.
On the one hand, I am filled with gratitude. We spent some time this afternoon with a family that has grown to mean a tremendous amount to me over the past couple of years. I don’t get to see them often, but that just doesn’t seem to really matter. To me, they are proof that social media can be awesome because if it wasn’t for Facebook, they would have been lost to my past. I was so happy that my daughters got to go there and play with the other kids. Plus, it was in the city, and it turns out my little girls love the city as much as I always have.
But then we came home today and there was just way too much to do in way to little time, and I realized just how little control I have over absolutely everything. No matter how much work I do, and no matter how much I try to keep everyone and everything organized and under control, I am outnumbered. It’s not a fair fight.
And I try to fight these feelings. I try to convince myself to focus on gratitude and to accept that things are chaotic and that children create disaster zones everywhere they go. I try to focus on how cute it is when Magoo tries to help me and how proud both she and Goosie get when they do help. I try to focus on the progress rather than a perfect outcome. I try to remind myself that this is just a season and that it will pass and that when it does, I won’t remember the messy floors. I will remember the hugs and the kisses and the snuggles.
I try so hard to remind myself of all of that, but it just turns my brain into a tempest with positive thoughts and negative emotions swirling around, fighting against each other, trying to assert dominance over my feeble mind.
But maybe I shouldn’t be having these battles? Maybe some nights just suck. Maybe it’s just really stressful to have everything I try to do get undone by the time I’m even out of the room. Maybe some days it’s just really hard to go to bed with the same to do list as I have every single day and really nothing concrete to show for it.
And maybe it’s okay to come on the internet and whine about it. And maybe I don’t have to tidy it up and come up with some great happy peaceful evolved ending to this.
Maybe it’s okay to just be overwhelmed sometimes. Maybe I just need to accept it. Allow space for that feeling in my life. Recognize that life is a mix of good and bad, dark and light, and that the bad has just as much of a right to exist as the good? Perhaps there’s power in accepting the negative feelings in our lives and not being ashamed to express them out loud?
I think that’s called “making space.” Allowing all parts of ourselves to exist. Respecting all those parts. Honoring them. Refusing to give in to shame. Refusing to block of half of ourselves because it doesn’t fit into our vision of how we should be.
What do you think world? Perhaps one day I’ll have the emotional intelligence of a grown up, and then I can share my answers with you. Some day… For now I just share the journey and hope to come out on top more often than I falter.