I have a good friend who reminds me of so many of my other good friends (and even myself) . She is generally upbeat, positive, excited and always looking for the silver linings, but lately she is struggling. Her life is feeling somewhat “exhausting” and overwhelming at times lately, and she is upset with herself for not feeling like her usual chipper self. When we had lunch the other day, she apologized for being “Debbie Downer.” I said, “You are not Debbie Downer. You’re Rhonda Real.”
Why do we women apologize so much for the moments in our lives that we don’t feel 100 percent amazing? Why do we feel so responsible to be happy and cheerful all of the time? Every time I have a friend who is going through a tough time, I notice a trend (and I notice this in myself, too). She puts on a brave front and expertly covers all of her cracks, until she finally breaks down. She takes forever to admit that she is going through a tough time. Next, she apologizes profusely about going through a hard time, and then she apologizes even more so, for venting her emotions about what she is experiencing, as if she has control over either experience. And then she finally clams up, like a little crab that is embarrassed to have shown her vulnerable little legs of emotion. Why do we women feel like we have to apologize for being human??? I read something recently that makes a lot of sense. Negative emotions are only poisonous to us, when they are blocking out all other emotions. But most of us feel all sorts of emotions, all day long. There is no shame in feeling negative emotions. There are four general states of being: glad, sad, mad, or scared. Ideally, we would prefer to stay in “the glad” category all of the time, but that’s not realistic in a healthy (versus numbed out) human life. Sadness is necessary to process grief. Fear alerts us, and it keeps us safe and anger inspires us to do something about a situation that we perceive as being wrong or unfair. Anger actually has a lot of energy. Bottom line, if you choose to block or numb out all of your feelings, you block out the good ones, too, and that’s not the goal. The goal is to experience our feelings in the “glad” category for a lot of our times.
Perhaps if we weren’t so horrified and judgmental and apologetic about our lesser emotions, we would suffer less. If we can accept that sometimes we will feel sad, scared and angry, and just notice these painful emotions and accept them (without wallowing in them), they can be used as tools to get us back to our better feeling “glad” state of being. What are our emotions telling us? If we are scared, what can we do to feel more safe and secure? Are our fears truly valid or have we exaggerated them in our minds? If we are angry, what action can we take or boundaries can we put in place, in order to not feel used and abused? (Another interesting thing I read recently, is that science shows that the physical effects of angry or scared emotions, only last 90 seconds in our bodies. If we breathe through the emotions, instead of feeding them more fuel with angry or scared thoughts, the physical aspect of the emotion will pass and we can make more rational choices about what to do next. So don’t count to ten, instead count to 90, the next time that you feel angry or scared, as long as you aren’t in serious, imminent danger.) If we are sad, we can nurture ourselves, like we would nurture our loved ones going through a hurtful moment, knowing that unprocessed grief will cause more damage to us in the long run, in the way of physical ailments and mental breakdowns. In short, if you get curious and detached about your own emotions, you realize that all of your emotions have their place in your life, and they are actually quite useful. And also realize that we all love Rhonda Real, because she authenticates our own living experience. She helps give us permission to be our fullest selves. And she is so lovable, no matter what state of being she is currently experiencing!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.