Ouch. Yeah, read that again if you need to.
If you’re like me, you stay busy to keep from thinking. Worse for me is to keep from feeling. I don’t like to feel my feelings, especially if they’re negative emotions.
Double ouch.
What I’ve learned throughout my life, though, is keeping busy doesn’t help you work through the emotions; nor does it keep the emotions from completely taking over your life without your permission.
When I ignore my negative emotions, they don’t just go away. Instead, those negative emotions – suppressed as much as they can be – begin to slowly erode everything positive in my life. It starts with my mind, dragging me toward depression. Once that happens, it’s a quick downhill tumble to take over my physical health – I feel tired, I can’t eat much, I stop exercising because I just have no energy…
I bet it does the same to you, even if you don’t really want to admit it.
I honestly didn’t realize that’s what I was doing until halfway through 2020.
I was supposed to visit my family in May. That didn’t happen. I’m an introvert, but I still like to be around people from time to time. That wasn’t happening. These are just two tiny parts of my 2020, but I want to move forward in my message…
Suffice it to say, I was struggling mentally, but I shoved it to the back and started doing physical work (renovating a library to turn it into a multi-purpose space for historical artifacts and cafe.
I had so much fun!
Then I was forced to confront the fact that I had been suppressing my negative emotions for months.
Since then, I have been pushed again and again to sit in silence – no work, no ‘busy-ness’. This “work” was the most difficult yet important work I did in 2020.
I now make my sit down at least once a week and I make myself process everything going on inside that I’d rather ignore…
So… what are you trying to avoid thinking/feeling? Own your truth. You’re not alone!
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