Seasons
During a mindless Instagram scroll that was slowly digging a tunnel through my soul–I came across a post by one of my favorite people, The Holistic Psychologist (Nicole Le Pera):
Normalize not thriving.
Life is not always meant to be optimized.
We aren’t always meant to feel good.
It’s ok to feel down.
To self isolate.
To have periods of grieving.
Human beings are seasonal.
It was a tough one to come upon while doing a mindless scroll. Usually mindless scrolls are not coming from a good place. If I’m feeling good, I won’t mindlessly scroll. I wasn’t feeling good–and I wasn’t sure why. This meme was speaking directly to my soul–and I was desperately looking for a distraction from my soul. It brought me back to a sneaky little phrase that has been ricocheting around my brain lately: “It’s ok to feel.”
It’s a bit embarrassing to admit–I need a reminder to go ahead and feel things. When taking an objective step backward, it’s not so hard to believe. We are all pummeled by SoMe messages that coach us on how to optimize all the parts of our lives. I’m guilty of putting those messages out myself: Super efficient training advice, optimized morning routines, change your mindset with cold exposure! What about optimizing “feeling your feelings?”
Lately I’ve had to tell myself messages like:
It's ok to feel
It's ok to not feel good
You can still get some stuff done when you’re not feeling great emotionally
When someone asks how you’re doing–it’s ok to say “Not that great”
What goes up must come down
What goes down will come up again
I also need to tell myself that it’s ok to distract myself–if I consciously make the decision to do that. I can say to myself: “Hmmm, I’m not feeling great. I am going to binge a series on Netflix.” But it is also very important for me to just sit with the unpleasant feelings. I have trained myself to always seek a solution to a problem, but sometimes there just isn’t one. Sometimes there is literally nothing to be done. You just have to feel a bit down for a while. When I allow myself to experience that, and I realize that I don’t just disintegrate–it becomes really useful knowledge for the next time one of these down periods come around.
I particularly like that The Holistic Psychologist says, “Human beings are seasonal.” We have seasons–I like that. I am a person that loves the change of seasons. Each season brings with it a unique beauty. Why should I deprive that of myself on a soul level? There is the potential for great beauty even in these downtimes.
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
–Pete Seger
Until next time
Scott & Lennart