For the longest time, I prided myself on my ability to emotionally handle hard situations. I would do everything in my power to accept the difficult moments life threw at me and focus on how I could healthily process what was happening. I wanted to be the strong one, the rational one, the one who could take whatever was thrown my way and get through it with my dignity still intact. I still am that person; I still want those things for myself.
I thought that being positive, being optimistic, staying neutral, and reinforcing that everything that happens to you is actually happening for you was how one should manage emotionally taxing situations.
First, I want to say that I still believe in the power of being optimistic and positive. I still try my best to focus on solutions instead of problems and keep in mind that everything happens for a reason. I think the stories we tell ourselves, our attitudes, and our ingrained reliance and belief that life works out the way it’s supposed to is imperative for growth and really… just life.
But, I also want to say that I neglected a really important step that needs to happen before anything I previously mentioned takes place. One that, deep down, I knew was necessary, but still felt like doing was counterproductive and hypocritical to my “positivity” persona. One that I learned is not counterproductive at all but actually vital for growth.
What I have learned in my 24 years is that: You need to let yourself feel in order to heal.
If you skip the “feel” step, you are just left with healing an empty emotion or unresolved situation, which only leads to more complicated and/or underlying issues later on.
I think for the longest time I prided myself on being “strong” because I felt like feeling anything other than optimistic, “happy”, or at the very least, “okay”, meant that I was weak. It meant that I didn’t have enough tools in my toolbox to work through hard moments on my own, and I did not want to be a burden on others or overload myself with unnecessary baggage.
Plain and simple, that is NOT how healing works.
Acting like you’re “okay” and that everything is all “good and dandy” while you’re lying awake at night trying to convince yourself that you’re fine is self-toxicity. It is not healthy. It is not “strong”. It is not helping anyone— especially not you.
There was a time, not that long ago, when I was dealing with a situation that felt overwhelmingly hard, and I remember thinking, “Do I tell myself that I’m okay and just distract myself from this pain, or do I let myself feel this in hopes that tonight is the worst of it?”
For the first time in years, I decided to stop acting like this situation didn’t fully bother me because in reality, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with. It has taught me more than I could explain, but it’s also been really challenging for a very long time.
So that night, I let myself feel everything I had been suppressing. It was one of those nights you hope you only have so many of, and even though I was not myself for a day or two afterward, if I had pushed those emotions to the side that night, that pain would have lingered for a lot longer.
It should be mentioned that “feeling” doesn’t just mean crying for hours on end in your bed while you blow your nose in to overused tissues until you fall asleep. “Feeling” can mean whatever the hell you need it to mean.
It can be letting a big, exciting moment in your life take the limelight instead of feeling pressured to stay humble and keep quiet.
It can be confronting the person you’re having an issue with instead of acting like everything is alright.
It can be getting honest about feeling overworked instead of telling yourself that it’s good to “grind”.
It can be feeling upset that you didn’t get something you really wanted instead of suppressing that emotion and believing that, “this is a good lesson to learn”.
Because the problem with everything I just said is not the fact that being humble is wrong, or grinding is wrong, or believing that there’s a lesson in everything you do is wrong. The problem is neglecting the inevitable emotions and reactions that arise in every situation you find yourself in— good or bad.
It has taken me a very long time to learn that managing your emotions does not mean denying them.
So, with all that said, I want to emphasize that you should never have to choose between being “strong” and feeling what you need to feel. I think it takes way more strength to let yourself feel than to tuck your emotions away for a rainy day, slap on a smile, and convince everyone else and yourself that you’re “okay”. Your mental health is not an “or” situation. It is an “and”.
You can be strong AND vulnerable.
You can be optimistic AND realistic.
You can be rational AND emotional.
There’s a full spectrum of human emotion for a reason. Feel what you need to in order to heal.
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