If you are ready to learn about a new, and highly effective way to move through challenging times and negative emotions, that you probably haven’t heard before, read on..
I love to study all forms of spirituality, and Law of Attraction Principles, and understand energy and vibration are fundamental aspects of whole-being health. But during times of struggle – the last thing I want to hear is that my vibration is attracting negative experiences or emotion toward me.
While this may very well be true to a degree, I don’t find it comforting to entirely blame my vibration for my depressed mood or negative circumstances all of the time.
I understand that I can still be working with these principles to get through challenging times, but there is also a time and place place to just ride it out.
To not obsess over my frequency and worry that my vibration is attracting bad things toward me. There is certainly a time for this, and the truth is that like attracts like. So, from here, I can take some personal responsibility for my reality, and what has been brought into my experience, but not blame myself for it. It is important to get this distinction.
I am all for positive thinking, affirmations, working on my mindset and seeing the positive in even the most difficult circumstances.
In fact, this is what I do for a living. I help people who are stuck in a rut, to discover action steps they need to take to move themselves forward. However, there have also been times when simply telling someone to write their gratitude’s or think positively when their marriage is falling apart, their bank account is empty and they are going bankrupt, and everything is coming down around them, is not going to serve them well.
Mindset is a part of how our lives unfold, and is a big reason why we stay stuck, but I believe we also have to accept fully how we are feeling, and allow the emotion to move through, and then discover what mindset patterns we are replaying that are keeping us from achieving what we say we want.
Telling someone who is depressed and struggling emotionally to think positively, or that they attracted this into their experience, will only lead to feelings of intense guilt and self-judgement.
Some of the most profound healing I have witnessed when working with a deeply depressed person, is to give them permission to just feel how they feel. Often they come in feeling like there is something really wrong with them. They have been told by well-meaning friends and family things like “count your blessings” or “just think positive” or the worst thing anyone can say to a depressed person: “what do you really have to be depressed about”?
When I give them permission to feel, and simply validate their feelings, they often have a deep, soul cleansing cry , and look and feel like a huge and heavy burden has been lifted. Because it has!
So, here is the secret to finding peace in the moment: Remove the word “should” from your vocabulary. Don’t say the word out loud, or to yourself. When you catch yourself doing it, just notice the emotion that follows when you use the word. It’s a stinkin’ word that needs to go.
When we use the word should, we make ourselves wrong, and we are arguing with the way things are. As soon as we argue with reality, we create stress and emotional imbalance.
As soon as we think that we ‘should’ be feeling better, or thinking more positively, or that things ‘shouldn’t’ be as they are, or we ‘should’ be happy with our lives (but we aren’t) we can really spiral downward.
When we are taken down to our knees with grief and hardship, and the feeling as if everything we are trying to accomplish is failing, and all aspects of our lives are not working – the should thinking induces intense guilt, and anchors feelings of depression and despair.
Sometimes the greatest remedy for times of deep struggle, and crushing stress, is to just allow ourselves to feel the pain of it. To curl up in a ball and cry, scream, write and feel pissed off at the Universe for being where we are.
To just let go and sink into the depths of it, and get curious what our emotions are trying to tell us. What life is trying to tell us.
What needs to change? What part of our soul are we ignoring? Where are we being inauthentic in our lives? What are we holding on to that we need to let go of? Where are we not fully expressing ourselves and who we are? Are we truly living a life that matters to us? What is no longer working that we are afraid to let go of?
What we feel we can move through. And allowing ourselves to feel how we feel is powerful, and deeply healing. It also helps the emotion move through faster than it would if we are denying, suppressing or trying to force them away.
We have to discern between the times when pushing ourselves through self-pity, when we want to just whine and pout that things aren’t going our way, and we just need to give ourselves a kick in the pants, and times when we are going through another layer of our healing, and need to just flow with it.
Many of us fear going into our emotions, mainly because we fear if we will be able to handle what is there, as well as the fear of staying stuck in those emotions. And it is true that emotions can be scary and really dark.
But the real fear needs to be what those unprocessed and denied emotions are doing to our body, mind and soul. It is much better to allow the feelings to come, and be what they are, than to suppress, distract of numb them with drugs, food, alcohol, electronic gadgets, busy work, and searching for a partner to fill that void. When we repress our emotions, those around us suffer a lot more as well, because we often take out our unexpressed emotional crap out on those we love the most.
Ok, so I hope I have conveyed what to stop doing when you are struggling. To recap: Stop denying how you feel, stop trying to force painful and negative emotions away, and stop ‘should-ing’ on yourself.
Once you come through the other side of the storm, and manage to move away from self-destructive behaviors, feel your way through it, and take good care of yourself during it, you will probably find that you have new awareness’s, and clarity around what the next steps are to move forward.
The times where we can spring back are because we are doing the above, and limiting the self-destructive behaviors that can coincide with challenging times.
There is the pain, and then what we do with that pain that determines if we stay stuck in the downward spiral, or manage to find our way out of it feeling more awake and inspired than before.
Once we come through the other side, this is the time to spring forward, and take inspired action. I know for myself, it has been following periods of struggle, and dark times in my life, that I have my greatest soul-growth spurts, insights and motivation to make changes in my life.
It’s is like the feeling of when the clouds part, and the sun streams down after a dark and gloomy day.
The period before I decided to go to school to become a counsellor was one of the worst times of my life. I was in a crisis, deep depression, and everything was falling apart around me. But tapping into the courage, clarity and inspiration to take that leap came from coming through a really intense storm.
My best blogs and chapters in my book have come from a place of coming through the fog, the times of going inward and being very introspective. I have the greatest epiphanies after the darkness fades, and I can see the light again.
As and introverted empath, a highly sensitive soul, and someone who has lived with depression on and off for most of my life, I understand the struggles and challenges this brings to living a wholehearted and full life.
I have also used this as my motivation to push forward when it is time to hustle. To lovingly nudge myself forward and take risks, and do something scary and new. I choose not to use it as an excuse to stay small.
In all of life we have a choice – we can use or struggles to stop us from growing or as a reason to pursue greatness, and challenge ourselves daily. To be determine to rise above adversity, and expand our consciousness.
To awaken our souls through the pain, knowing that in all of life there is duality. We can not have true rapture and joy without periods of pain and sadness. We can not have all joy and happiness without grief and sorrow. There is dark, and there is light.
And when we can learn to embrace it all, and know that everything is impermanent, and emotions are transient, we can truly flow with life.
Just like winter turns to spring, you will get through this. And you will be even stronger once you weather the storm and come through the other side.
Then ,we can stop being mad at the Universe and ask instead what it is we need to learn most from the situation.
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Great post, and wise word! Yeah, I have been in the same place. I think the best artists and musicians and healers and entrepreneurs and inventors came up with their best stuff after going through at least one of these periods. I can say this because I am relatively ok right now, but if I have to revisit another Dark Night of the Soul it is people like you I would want to connect with, not someone giving me a list of “shoulds”