When was the last time you gave yourself permission to feel hurt? Or feel beat up, bruised, or cheated? The reality is, these emotions are more common than we like to admit. If you’re anything like me, you get in the habit of suppressing them. However, the problem with surprising those types of emotions is that they become bottled up. And, nine times out of ten, the smallest thing down the road can open the floodgate. What I’ve found is that by giving yourself the permission to feel this way, and letting yourself sit in it (but, not forever!) you allow those types of emotions to run their course, and you emerge with a clear head. In this week’s blog post, this is what I wanted to talk about.
In the last month, I’ve had more of these experiences than I care to count. Some were business related, others were acting related, and even a few relationship related. I would leave a meeting, conversation, or event feeling beat up, and emotionally exhausted. Normally, I’d try to find something else to focus on, whether it be work, going to the gym, anything that will distract me. However, this can sometimes be more detrimental than reacting to the actual situation that put you in this state of mind. By not dealing with something, we can’t ever truly move on from it. Finding a distraction is a lot like the analogy “bandaids don’t fix bulletholes.” It’s a temporary fix for dealing with a not-so-temporary problem.
When we try to sweep the problem under the rug, we usually wind up making the problem even worse, because it’s bound to resurface; bigger, and more difficult. It’s easy to say, “I can’t deal with this right now” or “I don’t have the time for this.” The problem? We never come back to it. Before we know it, several months later, a circumstance triggers it, and the problem becomes ten times what it initially was. In return, we feel ten times worse than we would have if we had just dealt with it at the time.
The idea I really want to stress this week, is the idea that it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to feel beaten up, bruised, hurt, and all of those things. However, it’s never okay to stay there. Give yourself permission to be sad, sulk, and lean into it. Then, dust yourself off, and get back on the horse, whatever that looks like for you. For me, that means submitting for the next acting project, reaching out to a new brand, or researching a new way to work on growing my social media and business. The bottom line is, those feelings are okay. And, by leaning into them, we give ourselves the grace to be human, stumble, fall down, and then pick ourselves back up.