Sit with it.
At times we may feel overwhelmed by difficult emotions or memories. Things can feel too painful to experience or remember.
We may avoid the discomfort and trauma by diverting ourselves in seemingly healthy or unhealthy ways. We can self-medicate in destructive ways with food, drugs, or alcohol. Or we can bury ourselves in work or hobbies to keep ourselves distracted. Working out can provide temporary relief by changing our body chemistry.
But none of these coping mechanisms deal with the issue longer term. At some point, we will need to reckon with whatever is making us feel uncomfortable, or it may disrupt our existence in destructive ways.
We likely have resistance to the challenging scenario. Acceptance of something painful may feel wrong or impossible. But that’s exactly what we need to heal. We need to face down whatever happened and accept that it did. We don’t have to like it or condone it, but we need to admit fully that it occurred.
A useful way to do so it to simply sit quietly and experience all the uncomfortable emotions. We may not feel capable of doing so for an extended period of time. But every little bit will help. Even 30 seconds of complete acceptance will help us unload some of the difficult feelings we’ve stuffed. We can work up to longer spans of acceptance with time.
Today’s message invites me to be still with hard emotions. When I accept whatever caused my feelings, I can begin to dissipate any negative effects it created in my life.
Please reflect and share. Are you willing to sit with challenging emotions?