Sit in your emotions
Have you ever felt like you have so many emotions that you want to check out of them? Like, literally…all of them. I’ve had moments where feeling an emotion, by itself, was exhausting; emotions can be incredibly overwhelming….
How do your emotions feel? Do you have a jittery stomach, itchy hands, or a tension headache? Emotions cause a physical response, which can be awesome….or not so much.
What if we chose to embrace all of our emotions, as a means to balance our inner self? What if we became so good at being sad (for example), that when something sad happens, we allow ourselves to just be? What if it were not only okay to be sad, but we didn’t run away from it, and we just allowed ourself a time and a place to be sad?
I’m not saying this is easy or fun, but our emotions are a result of the thoughts we choose. We can choose to feel, or we can choose to avoid. Sometimes, we choose to feel, but with conditions; that’s like lying by omission. If you’re going to feel, feel. If you’re going to avoid, avoid….but recognize that either way, the choice is yours.
So, for clarity, I have tried to schedule a time to be sad before. I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out…I’ve been working on managing my thoughts for a while now, and something happened that was truly sad. It wasn’t a thought I created, it was sad; it was grief.
So, being the aware minded person I am, I scheduled a PTO day, and planned to let my emotions be and do what they needed to, but only between the hours of drop off and pickup of my little and middle children.
Before you think this is an amazing idea….it didn’t work.
All day, I thought I was trying to embrace the sadness, while sorting laundry (literally, 10 loads, wowzah!), vacuuming, changing sheets, mopping the floors, walking the dogs…and even scheduling a 60 minute “break” to attend a positive parenting workshop.
I never cried….but not because I wasn’t sad, instead, because I didn’t really allow myself to sit in it. I told myself I was going to be sad, but I was too afraid to allow it. I opted to do all of the physical things that would distract my brain, so I didn’t have to feel my emotions, even without realizing that’s what I was doing.
Well, a couple days later, I sat in my sadness; I was not given a choice. My sadness came through like a train around and through my heart. I dumped my thoughts on my computer; I shared them with my husband….and I discontinued all of the “noise” that I was allowing in my head…no podcasts, no books, no audible stories….not even music.
When I got in the shower, I literally cried until I couldn’t stand….and then cried a little more, curled up on the floor, naked in the shower.
When I got out, I went to bed. I didn’t feel amazing the next day, but I felt like I had let my body sit in a totally uncomfortable emotional state…and you know what, I’m okay.
Well, I’m okay-ish…..
Grief will wait for you. Sadness will wait for you. Your emotions can only be stuffed down for so long, before they start to bubble over. Your thoughts are “figureoutable,” and your feelings about those thoughts are whatever they need to be. Choose the thoughts that let you feel your true emotions, and then choose the thoughts that serve your ability to heal.
I’m still working through some thoughts and feeling my emotions, but things are happening in a way that is organized, true, and meaningful, and not some half-baked attempt to pretend to be vulnerable.
The planned exploration of what your emotions feel like, as well as identifying them, is a wonderful plan. For example, every day you take five minutes before you get home from work, to think about your day, your feelings about the day, and the emotional state you’re in. Then, shift to a place of gratitude.
These are choices.
We choose to feel the day’s happenings; we can sit in those feelings for a scheduled 5-10 minutes, daily and without judgment. We don’t attach shame or guilt, we just recognize the feelings about those thoughts and emotions. Then we move on to an intentionally positive place.
You have one mind. You are in control of the thoughts you believe. Choose thoughts that serve you, and not thoughts that prevent you from forward progress.