Monday Inspiration: Give In

Just another manic Monday... or week! If you didn't notice, I was not able to get up a "Weekly Wonders" post last week. It felt like the week just whizzed by and between classes, homework, meetings, and life I just didn't have the time. Goal for this week: Be more on top of things.

Moving on, last week was a whirlwind of emotions and stress. We didn't have classes Monday, but something happened last Sunday that just bummed me out and put me in a funk that made accomplishing anything (besides signing a lease!!) seem impossible. By the time classes on Tuesday rolled around I had no choice but to pick myself up and work my butt off the rest of the week. I was so thankful when Friday came, I was actually dying to go out and just hang out with friends.

Sometimes letting loose with your best friends is the greatest remedy for releasing all the stress that had built up throughout the week. I mentioned here that I tend to feel anything and everything. Last week I was so busy I felt like I didn't have time to even handle anything I was feeling, and it all crept up on me Saturday when I finally had some downtime. 

I learned this summer that not taking the time to acknowledge and handle the feelings you don't want to feel is going to do you more harm in the long run then it will do you good. I was just talking about this with a friend yesterday who was feeling a little down (for good reason). Pushing away feelings you're afraid of or uncomfortable with might be a good remedy in the short term, but you have to give in to them at some point.

The bigger they are the harder they fall, right? I know this idiom is meant to describe failure, but I think it can be applied here as well. The more intense the feeling and emotion you refuse to acknowledge, the longer you harbor it somewhere deep down inside, the worse the heartbreak is going to be when they finally come to light. I've become a big proponent of taking time to consider how I'm feeling in any given situation, why I'm feeling that way, and how I can move on from it.

You can't find peace by avoiding life. You can't find peace by ignoring your emotions. The hardest part of accepting this part of life is accepting that it's okay to feel everything. When you're feeling everything at once though, that's when you run into trouble. You can run from so many things in life, but you can't run from yourself. You can't escape yourself. And your emotions are a part of who you are, a part of what defines you, a part of what defines your life. But that doesn't mean you have to let them run your life.

I'm a very intuitive person. I can tell when someone is struggling. And the one thing all these people have in common? It's not that they're broken, it's the fact that they think they're broken.

We've all been there. We've all felt lost. But if you break once, it's okay. Just don't allow yourself to stay that way. Part of the process of overcoming the tougher emotions in life--heartbreak, grief, loss, even love-- is allowing yourself to feel them. Really, truly, deeply, feel what it is your feeling and don't be sorry about it. We're all human, and we're all just trying to get by. My greatest worry about our society today is that between social media, the pressure to fit in, this "American dream" that always seems so out of reach, people have lost themselves. We've become ghosts just puttering around hoping that one day we stumble upon success. Don't be a ghost. Don't run from who you are. Give in to your emotions, give in to your feelings, and life will find a way to repay you. Honesty is one of the hardest things in life, but it's true what they say, nine times out of ten it's the best policy.

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Challenge yourself this week.

xoxo