Being with Difficult Emotions
Holding space for our messiness and our gorgeousness
Growing up, my family never talked about our feelings and emotions. The only feelings that were prevalently expressed were anger and frustration. I didn’t have much of an emotional vocabulary, not to mention, I didn’t even know if I had emotions. I was an unintentional stoic. Ha! At a young age, I was probably taught to suppress my feelings. Any expression that was not happiness was not accepted. However, emotions are part of our make-up. When I dull my emotions and numb myself to what’s going on, I not only avoid the uncomfortable ones (which was what I wanted, before) but then I also don’t experience the happier ones either. They’re all locked away. Like a volcano erupting, these emotions of mine really blossomed about 4 years ago. And when they erupted into my life, I was completely overwhelmed, afraid, and at a loss for how to contain them any longer. So I did the only thing I could do, let myself be with them.
4 years later, even though I’ve learned to let myself feel my emotions and safely release them, it’s still uncomfortable for me. I still feel allergic to them. Yet I’ve learned that without emotions, I don’t feel as alive. Life feels monotone rather than vibrant. Emotions are now like oxygen to me. Beyond the fundamental need to survive, emotions allow me to thrive.
The last couple of weeks, I was feeling a bit numb which I initially dubbed as contentment. This numbness happened because one part of me had pushed things forward in my entrepreneurship, but another part of me hasn’t caught up. Transitioning from a tech job into a solopreneur, creative job is a huge transition. And I hadn’t held proper space for the emotional aspects of this transition. I was focused on the strategy and the execution, numbing down my resistance. And when I made the space to reflect, it was clear to me that I needed to also make space for my emotional world.
I’ve reached a point in my journey where I’m feeling hesitant and afraid to continue moving forward. I feel sadness and disappointment that I didn’t get the traction I wanted in my business. Yet I’m also stressed and resistant to turning back. Because being back where I was feels worse than the landing place I’m standing on now. I’m filled with dread that I’m completely lost and possibly on the wrong path. Last week, I started listening to Brene Brown’s book “Rising Strong”, and it seems what I’m going through is just part of the process. No one can skip this difficult part of the arch to becoming a courageous leader.
I want nothing more than to avoid my pain, to avoid the discomfort, to avoid the difficult emotions but no matter what, I see no way through it but to actually go through it. If I avoid it, it’ll always be there, and just like I’ve learned in the past, the only way through is indeed through – through the darkness into the light. This means I have to get to know my darkness, be curious about it and love it.
I’ve gone through this arch of the journey in the past, and truthfully, it doesn’t get easier. I’m just faced with different situations, challenges, and obstacles. Typically when I’m in the thick of it, it’s so excruciatingly uncomfortable. But when I get to the other side, I see that there could have been no other way. Sometimes, I wish I could be at where I was before I fell – things seemed more simple and easy. But this is the inevitable process of growth, and I am not one to shy away from growth. Because no matter how hard things can sometimes get, there is no place I’d rather be than where I am at now.
I have a much better relationship with myself than before. I am more balanced than before. I am happier than before. I have a better relationship with my family than before. I have better boundaries than before. I am more grounded than I have ever been in my life. I am more present to my emotions. I am more present to reality. I am more present to the energy I’m creating. I’m more present to how my actions impact others. Things that were impossible seem more possible. Emotions that felt intense before feel less intense. So the discomfort is worth it each time. It just takes a brave soul to traverse it.
And I know that each one of us has this courage to face our difficult emotions. To me, it is a great act of self-love when we get to know ALL of ourselves, both the messiness as well as the gorgeousness.
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