I don’t even know where to begin.
September has been a life-changing month when it comes to my perception of life and wow, all I want to do is share it with you.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that I used to run a blog last year called Kimtells. It was more of the same of what I’m already sharing here, but a lot more raw. I had a series of posts that were completely stream-of-consciousness.
The blog has since been removed, but every day on my Timehop app, I’m reminded of my old posts since I promoted them on social media. I used to blog daily so when I check the app, the title of an old post usually comes up. More often than not, the central theme of my posts was positivity; how to achieve a happy life and practices to implement, but on the other end, I shared a good amount of my struggles. My stream-of-consciousness posts were like a diary session I let the entire world in on.
I never liked sharing those posts. I felt like a fraud to this spiritual community. If I couldn’t keep it together myself, I thought, why would anyone listen to me? If I couldn’t take my own advice, then how could I encourage others to do so?
I fell into the happiness trap – the place where you believe happiness is the goal of your life. You do everything in your power to strive towards this state of bliss and when you slip up, you shame yourself exponentially. You completely disregard how you’re actually feeling because, according to what you’ve been taught, you shouldn’t feel this way.
I’ve been in this trap for most of my life, if not all of it.
I’ve torn myself down for absolutely every negative emotion I experience. What I didn’t realize is that by not validating my negative emotions, I have been abandoning myself altogether.
Have you ever wondered why, no matter how much positivity you focus on, you’re inevitably led back to your negative emotions? It’s because you are meant to have them. You were never meant to be a 100% happy, un-bothered, joyous being.
We can spend weeks to months to years avoiding our negative emotions only to have them manifest back into our lives at any moment. We’re never fully free of them because we haven’t allowed ourselves to go through the feeling process.
If you want a breakdown on how to feel your emotions, click here.
If I can leave you with only one point in this article, let it be this: the way you are feeling in any moment is absolutely the right emotion to be feeling. If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t be feeling it.
For example, let’s say when it comes to connecting with others, you are usually at a loss. You feel like everything you say comes across as wrong. You trip up when it comes to talking about yourself because you feel that your interests are vastly different from those around you. You make plans with people only to have them cancel. You even try hanging out with your own family only to not be seen. The list could go on.
So, in this scenario, it would be simple to try to remedy your mind with positive quotes.
The only person you ever truly need is yourself.
It has everything to do with them and not with you.
You’re a great human being and even though you don’t feel understood, you know you’ll find people who will someday.
Nice quotes, right?
Well, when you are in the midst of negative emotion, sometimes the very thing that can heal you one day can be a detriment to you the next.
So, yes, maybe one day feeding yourself positivity works just fine. You feel empowered and the negative emotion subsides.
However, on a different occasion, those very quotes don’t resonate the same. You keep repeating them over and over only to feel a tightness in your chest. You can’t understand why you aren’t feeling any better. You end up spiraling into a worse state of depression.
The thing is, when you try to avoid the aspect of yourself that is hurting, you are ultimately avoiding yourself. You’re ignoring the fact you don’t feel seen or heard in this world by ironically, not seeing or hearing yourself!
We’ve been fed this idea that we can’t focus on the negative or else we will attract more negative into our lives. I’m here to tell you quite the opposite.
When you are in a state of not belonging or inadequacy, telling yourself you’re a great person feels like a joke. You’re upset and by not believing the words you’re telling yourself, you only enforce the belief you’re not good enough because you aren’t even able to convince yourself of it.
So, where do you go instead? Straight into the emotion.
Be with where you are. Ask yourself, aloud if needed, exactly how you feel.
In the example above, maybe you feel ignored, worthless, different, or even naive that you thought someone could understand you. Listen to what you’re saying and don’t try to throw a positive spin on it.
Go deeper into the emotion.
When was the last time you remember feeling this way?
Maybe even the first time?
I did this process on myself the other day and I unlocked a memory of moving away from a childhood friend when I was four. I completely forgot about her and in the midst of moving through my emotions, I remembered how angry she was towards me for leaving. She felt I was abandoning her.
As relationships progressed throughout my life, I noticed I tend to try to be everything to everyone. I don’t want any discomfort or conflict nor do I want anyone to feel like I’m not there for them. I see now that a lot of this may have stemmed from that initial memory of ‘abandoning my friend’ when in reality, moving was completely out of my control. I did not purposefully leave her, but in her mind, she may have developed the belief system that people always leave.
You can’t control how other people will react to you and while we’re told their opinions shouldn’t matter, your emotions may paint a different picture. We need to be okay with feeling into that.
As Teal Swan once said, would you rather spend an hour in the depths of your emotions, allowing yourself to feel, or spend your life running away from it?
In the running away, we place a band-aid on an emotional problem that will re-surface the next time a trigger comes up. The only way to heal our pain is to move directly through it.
This realization is drastically different from anything I have ever taught or known, but let me tell you, I feel a-new. I’m serious.
Listen to this truth: you are allowed to feel exactly the way you feel no matter what. If you’re sad, be sad. If you’re angry, be angry. If you want to punch a pillow, fucking go for it. By going through the emotion, we are no longer invalidating ourselves. We’re accepting exactly where we are and from there, our vibration increases. Our energy will shift.
Funny enough, when you’re in a state of depression, being angry is actually a vibrational shift. We expect ourselves go from low to high in an instant when that’s not the way energy works. We need to be able to move up the vibrational scale, not force ourselves up with a torch under our ass.
I feel so inspired to write after to coming to these realizations because I have never had so much to share. Today has only scratched the surface.
I will let you go for now, but let me leave you with this – denying the way you actually feel will never lead you to a better life. The moment you are able to be with yourself and listen fully is the first step towards your expansion. We were never meant to turn away.