Permission to be okay with not being okay
It sounds cliché to say this, but: where did January go? A month which is often experienced as one full of newness and possibility, still seems to be tethered a little too tightly to the year that passed, and with the cloud of Covid still hanging in the air, the familiar hallmarks of a new year, seem nowhere to be found.
There’s no getting away from the collective struggle being experienced across borders; with constantly moving goal posts, uncertainty, unpredictability, and tragedy, mixed in with the individual experience — life has been hard. Even if you are not experiencing something challenging directly, you are likely just one degree of separation from someone who is. All of this can have the effect of triggering difficult emotions.
What makes an emotion ‘difficult’ is fairly subjective. But it is a characteristic often ascribed to emotions such as disappointment, sadness, anxiety, and anger, emotions which generally show up when we struggle against what is. They often come with a negative assessment that they are ‘bad’ and should not be felt, and any expression of them should definitely be limited and controlled.
But in our rush to get through them, or diminish them, we might be missing out on what they could be pointing us to. Ignoring the emotion you feel, will not alter the circumstance. And by acknowledging the emotion, it does not mean that you like the circumstance either. But, by being with your emotion you are showing up authentically to the experience.
A healthier perspective on emotions has emerged in the last few decades. One key perspective is that the emotions themselves are not good or bad. They are simply a very normal response to a particular circumstance. Sadness for example, is natural in the face of a loss. Anxiety is understandable when approaching the unknown, and disappointment makes complete sense when expectations have not been met. Recent research and studies on emotion have invited us to see emotions as teachers, or signposts. If we are able to sit with the difficult emotion just for a moment and consider what it might be pointing to, then suddenly it becomes something not to be avoided and resisted, but rather it can show us to what we hold as important.
Often the trouble comes not with the emotion itself, but the emotion we have about the emotion. We have been fed a false narrative that you get stronger by suppressing what you really feel and forcing yourself to “be positive”. There seems to have been a conflation of success with happiness. But by rushing through and not taking the time to learn from what we are experiencing, we might miss out on the personal growth that can accompany personal struggle. And so we have unhelpful (albeit well intentioned) sentiments like “cheer up” and “ah, don’t cry”. But in truth by going through (and not around) life’s ups and downs we are able to generate resilience and gain insights that we would not have been able to make if we tried to bottle up or push aside what is truly going on for us. As author Susan David says, discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.
How do we develop a way of being that can become truly stronger from the emotional experience?
First we need to notice our feelings and name our emotion. Getting specific gives us the information we need in order to take a step toward the future we want. There is a world of difference between being “stressed” meaning I feel exhausted and I need to take some time out; or being stressed meaning I feel unappreciated and I need to have a conversation with a particular person in my life. Once we get granular on what is going on, we can take a helpful action.
Next we can use our language to create a little distance between ourselves and the emotion. Instead of saying “I am sad/angry/anxious” we can position ourselves as an observer and reframe this with “I notice I am having a feeling of being sad etc”. This enables us to acknowledge that we are never completely one emotion, we are still a person who is resourceful; wise; and capable, and by creating this small distance one can begin to see what else is possible from this space. Perhaps in this space we can show ourselves compassion for having a feeling that is entirely aligned with the experience.
If we allow ourselves a moment to consider what the emotions might be pointing us to, and allow them to be part of our human experience, we can begin to have them versus the emotions having us. Charles Darwin believed that difficult emotions are core to our ability to adapt and thrive in the world. Let them remind you of what you value, who you love and what you have to be grateful for. Breathe deeply in and deeply out, and remember that this too shall pass.
The last few verses of Rumi’s poem The Guest House is a beautiful invitation: “The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
