Piece by Piece
Piece by piece I tear myself down and piece by piece I build myself back up. Two steps back and two steps forward, where is the emotional balance? It would make more sense to skip the back steps, but I am ultimately my own worst critic. Instead of “you did well today”, I say, “that was dumb”. Its negative thoughts like these that tear me down. I know not to do it, but old habits are hard to break. I must make a conscious effort to keep an emotional balance. Good mental health like physical health takes constant action and awareness.
What is emotional balance? According to Hands On Scotland “Emotions are how we genuinely feel about things. We all experience both pleasant and unpleasant feelings in our lives. Emotional balance is about getting the balance of pleasant and unpleasant feelings right. When we get the balance right, we can flourish – this means feeling happy, getting the most out of our lives and giving the best that we can give.”
When my emotions get out of balance, I have to stop and take inventory of what is causing the internal earthquake and make adjustments to allow for those emotions to process. This has taken time to learn and is easier said than done. I often try to push through and ignore the hard feelings, thinking they will dissolve into thin air. This thought process does more damage than good. The issues don’t disappear they just build like an unstable tower ready to collapse at any moment.
According to Dan Mager’s article; Moving Toward Emotional Balance, “Being out of balance emotionally usually involves either not allowing yourself to experience your feelings as they evolve by avoiding or suppressing them, or being so attached to and identified with them that your feelings are all-consuming. Emotional balance occurs when we allow ourselves to feel whatever comes up, without stifling or being overwhelmed by it, and learn to accept our feelings without judgment.”
Grief took every bit of balance I had and put it into a full tailspin. Slowly I have been learning to find some balance even in the worst emotional storms. The thing about emotions is just when you feel the calm another storm brews. The storms I have been battling this week came on slowly and presented as tightness in my shoulder, then pain moving up my neck and across my back to my other shoulder. Then the unexpected panic attack and slowly falling into a depressed state of being.
I want to shake it off, put on my big girl pants and move on with life, but I have to remind myself this is life. Without emotions, we would be robots. I don’t want to live like a robot, just doing, not feeling. Maybe I could have avoided the war within. I recall thinking I was too busy. Pushing forward to ignore the inconvenient feelings, hoping they would pass if I got everything done. The problem is once everything was done there was no reprieve because I had built a tower of pent of emotions layer by layer of stress, anxiety, sadness. Of course, the tower fell and it fell hard. Here I am piece by piece putting myself back together and learning to balance and build a stable tower, one that might withstand the inner storms.
I am reading The Untethered Soul, by Michael A. Singer. It provides a simple visual on the mind, heart, and energy. There are enlightening points on how we create internal turmoil through our inner voice. How we block out happiness because we are protecting ourselves from manifested fears and how we block our own energy with our feelings.
“There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind – you are the one who hears it.” ― Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
As I read this book and reflect on my last emotional storm I can see it happening…I tell myself I am too busy to be sad or anxious. I tell myself there are too many distractions this isn’t the time, there isn’t enough time. In reality, the “too busy” is the distraction I have made up. The “to do” list is just that, a list. The real “to do” is to feel the feelings and know that these are life.
Life is not getting to the next bullet point, it’s everything in between.
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