Wow, are there ever times when life brings us some crap! I don’t really know anyone who greets the upset that comes our way with glee, most of us run the other way. It can sure feel challenging to manage the vibes when they come.
When you get upset, do you make space for what is happening?
Are you able to allow life to happen as it does, even when you had other plans? Or are you someone who pushes on with getting stuff done… even when you’re feeling anxious and you might not be sleeping well?
So many of us are searching for the answers to these questions and often this is the topic of conversation in the private healing sessions I offer.
No matter the journey, we all need to know what to do when the doo-doo hits the fan.
Everybody has times when life just cannot continue as planned. Stuff comes up. It gets in the way. Things happen that are out of our control. Things happen that could have been in our control. People we love get sick. We get sick. Jobs get lost. Our kids run into trouble. Stuff happens to the money we thought we had, old childhood wounds come calling… and on and on it goes.
I am not interested in giving you more bravado to walk around mindlessly repeating but I do want to help you get clear and present with what is going on so that you navigate the waves which inevitably come to us all while you still rock your life like you really mean it 🙂
May this go to just the right hearts today.
It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling.
What’s coming up for you is okay. It’s natural to feel upset. It’s important to make space for your feelings without trying to squish them down or attempting to quick-fix the situation.
Maybe your expectation that you should be able to carry on with life even in the midst of feeling this way is a bit unrealistic. I notice how hard we are on ourselves and how high we set our personal bar.
Maybe no one has taught you that disturbances take precedence in your nervous system.
When you’re upset, you might be able to cover it up somewhat on the outside but on the inside, you cannot. Your nervous system is a complex thing and it is registering all kinds of data about what is happening. You can try to be way up in your puny brain shouting all kinds of commands to yourself but if your nervous system is freaking out, you will hardly make a dent.
When you’re upset, you just are.
It’s very hard to act as if nothing’s wrong. I think it’s pretty unrealistic to have a wave of upset hit you and then expect yourself to just stand there doing whatever it is you had previously planned to do. Except that’s pretty much the training most of us received growing up… so this isn’t exactly easy to do.
What if you could give yourself permission to have space and time to breathe and rest, to consider what you want to do now that this ‘thing’ is here?
Don’t buy into the story that you can’t afford to take the time.
For every person who tells me they don’t have time, I can show you more people who know how to stop and honor what is happening – and for sure they are the ones who move through the storm the quickest! So if you are someone who thinks you don’t have time for this, think again.
Your resistance actually prolongs the suffering.
It is very hard to heal without helping yourself.
You help yourself by making space for what is happening.
This is the time to drop unnecessary tasks and make room for walks, baths, naps, journaling, and talking to trusted friends and family. Perhaps it’s a time for prayer and reflection. Ask yourself often, what can I do to be loving toward the part of myself that is hurting right now?
What can you do right now to process what’s happening?
This is not the time to worry about what people will say.
Don’t worry about what others will say if you don’t keep up the facade or act the part. This is the last thing that matters right now. I know we have been trained to care more about the opinion of other people than our own… but like EE Cummings says,
To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
This is the time to take your feelings seriously and make space. Show up for yourself. Love yourself.
It may be helpful for you to remember: You are not alone.
There are a lot of people going through this, they’re feeling the way you do right now.
Every week I speak with people who are going through all kinds of things and they are asking the same questions you are. You are not alone and you are not the only one. We have become way too good at hiding our feelings and acting as if all is well when it isn’t.
We are not here to be emotionless robots.
We are not here to pretend nothing’s wrong.
Faking “fine” isn’t healthy.
Maybe when we were little we were taught to suck it up. Maybe we were shamed for crying and not being able to function like everyone else seemed to be. Maybe when we freaked out about things the adults who should have been there for us just couldn’t handle it. But none of that means you are supposed to continue the cycle as an adult. You are here to learn to heal this, and you are here to share what you’ve learned with the world in your own way.
I don’t believe it serves me or anyone I’m connected to when I pretend that nothing is going on while my heart is breaking, or when I am feeling anxious, or I’m grieving, or I am really pissed off. When we act like everything is fine when it isn’t what we are actually doing is hardening a pattern we should be working harder to break.
Your vulnerable parts are beautiful.
Sometimes I really have to wonder about the collective unconscious urgings we all share prompting us to not acknowledge what’s really going on.
Pretending to be strong has nothing to do with your wholeness. If you want to be whole, you must embrace being vulnerable too.
Slapping a little bravado on the situation will not get you through. It will only prolong your suffering. It will only induce more anxiety. It will add years to your journey of suffering.
Being kind and gentle with yourself is part of the process of becoming whole.
Your wholeness has everything to do with making space for what comes up in your life.
Your vulnerable parts are real. Allow yourself to see them as beautiful.
You are welcome here exactly as you are.
Hugs and love,
