ID: The words New Blog Post in the upper right hand corner. A picture of a silhouette of a person with the words Acknowledging Difficult Emotions above it.
Have you ever been so sick/scared/depressed that you’ve forgotten how it made you feel? Maybe not; but we’ve all pushed less favorable experiences to the edges of our memory. What happens when you try to recall them? What happens when you’re forced to recall them?
One day, I vomited and struggled to eat. The next day, I woke up feeling weak and exhausted. I hadn’t experienced that in over a year. I hadn’t experienced it regularly in almost two years. But the feelings of familiarity were all too real. My body reacted in a trained response to care for itself, almost autonomously. I surrounded myself with possible solutions and recovered quite quickly.
But for a moment, I remembered the experience of being really sick. I remembered waking up every day to that feeling of weakness. I remembered spending all day struggling to create an appetite and find foods that didn’t immediately make the nausea worse. I remembered the crushing fear that filled me, wondering if I would ever be able to work myself out of that hole. And even now sitting atop a mountain overlooking my next valley, I know there will be another mountain top. I know that nothing is permanent.
Actively reminding myself to push that fear aside every day, multiple times a day, is no easy task. And living in a body that gives frequent painful reminders of injuries and limitations can make anyone hesitant. That is why it is so important for me to practice mindfulness. I may never get better. I will always have bad days. But it’s my choice how I fill the rest of my life. I choose every day to live in the moment and be grateful for whatever that moment brings.
Right this minute I am sitting at the edge of my chair trying to practice good posture. I can feel my back folding as my shoulders cave under their own weight. My elbows on the table feel heavier and heavier. I can feel the weight of my head on my neck and spine. I can feel my hip wobbling unstably as my feet press against the floor. And I can feel my hands and arms becoming fatigued after 30 minutes of writing. All of this causes significant pain. In the past I was so afraid that acknowledging the pain would make it, somehow, more real. Instead, I lived in a state of tense dissociation and denial.
Now I acknowledge I have very real and unfortunate limitations. In this moment, I will pause and rest to allow my body to recover. I will acknowledge my illnesses and all of their challenges and I will move through the emotions so I can enjoy my rest. I try to no longer burden myself with guilt or shame over something I can’t control. Instead I applaud my new tentative ability to meet my own limitations with compassion and solutions, where I once only saw fear and denial.
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