When all you can do is 'Sit With It'

Ever felt something and not known why you’re feeling it? I often get this with negative emotions. For a long time, I wasn’t comfortable with my own negativity. We’re taught to be okay and happy all the time.

Ever been asked “how are you?”? and you’ve replied “yeh good thanks”, but inside you’re screaming “WELL, actually, pretty shit. Work is stressing me out, things aren’t smooth at home at all, I feel like I’m constantly arguing with myself and everything feels like its falling down around me.” So many times, I’ve been asked this in the supermarket and I have wanted to tell the truth but I haven’t. I convince myself no-one wants to hear it and I should just buckle up and carry on.

Now, I constantly remind myself that its okay to not be okay, and that all I really need to do is just sit with it. You can go round and round in circles trying to work out why it is you feel the way you do, you end up feeling more hopeless and more helpless because you cant find the answers. Well maybe you don’t need to! Maybe all you need to do is sit with your emotions, acknowledge them, make peace with them, know that it will all be alright in the end and if it’s not alright it’s not the end. There’s still time. You’ll be back up there eventually but there’s no rush. Sometimes if you rush to pick yourself up again, you’re more likely to come crashing down again, harder and for longer. So take your sweet time and in the meantime, have a day.

So often we are also told to “have a good day” but what if we cant see any conceivable way of this happening? Sometimes, someone encouraging you to have a good day can just make you feel worse. Their intentions come from a good place, of course, but its not what you want to hear. So ‘have a day’ – eat nice food, wear comfy clothes and just be good to yourself in whichever way you can. Try not to be hard on yourself and try speak kindly to yourself. After all we have to live with ourselves for the rest of our lives, we might as well be friends with ourselves! You got this!

The dusk sky is my best reminder of my innate courage. It arrives just in time, at the end of the day, when night begins to draw in. The sky is blue, the colour of Borage flowers. Borage is for courage. The courage you showed in order to get through today, you did it! And the sun sets, it will rise once more and with it you will find the courage to see another day through. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other. Onwards, to the horizon.