Growing up, I suffered through a lot of negative emotions as a child, and I had no idea what to do with them. There was no safe environment in which I was properly taught how to effectively communicate. When I became an adult, I still had no guidance or understanding with communication. To be honest, I lived by my emotions because I didn’t know how to process them, and I felt that no one really cared enough to hear what I had to say anyway. I always felt misunderstood and no matter how I attempted to explain myself, no one understood me.
Being sad, angry, etc was seen as a condemning thing. No one taught me that I had a right to feel the way that I felt. I just needed to take time to process those feelings constructively so that they didn’t turn into negative behaviors. I just needed mental and emotional structure.
How many times have you heard someone say, “Put a smile on your face!” or “Fake it until you make it!” or “Cheer up! Things will get better.” So many different cliché sayings that are supposed to encourage us but instead it does the complete opposite. It makes us feel guilty for having negative emotions, even though we’re human and it’s perfectly natural for that to happen. Of course, I do believe that people don’t typically mean any harm. They’re just genuinely trying to help. Something about pushing someone into a positive state of mind will have people saying all sorts of things without even acknowledging how unhelpful those words really are. I started to understand that people will try to push you into a positive mood because they don’t really know how to help you and/or at times don’t really feel up to the task of being mentally and emotionally supportive. That’s not to say that they are bad people, they just don’t have the skillset in order to help us.
As I got older and more mature, I started understanding how to properly deal with my emotions instead of just stuffing them under a rug and pretending like whatever happened didn’t happen. That never seemed to work. Pretending something tragic didn’t happen, only leads to inadvertent negative behaviors. You may not be talking about it verbally, but your actions will tell others that you are hurting, they just aren’t sure why.
Therapy was a huge step for me. It took a few years for me to feel comfortable talking to someone about my life but once I did, it was like a huge weight was lifted from off my shoulders. I wish I could say that I had a few sessions and things were great but to be honest, my healing journey has been years in the making. There is no get healed quick scheme available, no matter how great your therapist is and no matter how good God may be.
Once I learned how to identify my emotions, I also realized that I did not have to condemn myself for feeling negative emotions because they exist for a reason. God gave us our emotions. He gave us feelings! We must listen to them….acknowledge them… nurture them… accept them….. and determine the validity of them. Allow them to guide us into the deeper parts of our soul and the realm of our spirit. Sometimes our emotions can be logical and sometimes they can be illogical. Nevertheless, there is a reason we feel the way that we do. It’s in those moments where it is important to sit with ourselves and rationalize our feelings as much as possible to reveal the deep-rooted issue. That is literally the only way we can move past those negative feelings. If we don’t give them the attention we need to, it will continue to bleed over into various areas of our lives which could not only impact our own mental health, but also our relationships.
Gone are the days where I force positivity in times where I really need to process everything I’m feeling. A few years back, I decided to give myself a 24-hour rule. Whenever I’m sad, or just in a funky mood, I give myself 24 hours to work it out. Whether that’s giving myself the space to be upset, cry, vent or whatever it is that I need to do, I allow myself that time to do it. Once those 24-hours are over, my mind is a lot clearer. Giving myself the space I need to get all those negative emotions out of my system equips me to better understand what prompted those emotions to begin with. It is in those moments; I am able to resolve my inner chaos and move towards establishing a new found healing and much needed peace. It may be that someone said something that was triggering or maybe I watched a movie that reminded me of something tragic that occurred in my life. It could be any number of things. No matter what it turns out to be, the most important part of this process is finalizing and determining the root cause so that I am able to deal with it and heal from it.
It does not work when you try to ignore or skip past your negative emotions. You can either deal with it or it will deal with you, one way or another. It is ultimately your choice.
Everyone’s path is different. No one has the answers to your problems but you. You can choose to be positive and keep pushing through your circumstances or you can just simply allow yourself time to hurt and time to heal…either way, it’s ok to not be ok. You don’t always need to be strong. Sometimes, you just need to be….human.
