I’ve always been a solutions oriented person. When things are tough, I look for the answer, the thing that will make it all better. That thing that allows me to put said issue into a box, seal it up tight and store it away.
Reader, let me tell you, I have amassed a lot of little boxes.
And while I’d like to say all of my boxes represent feelings that I’ve fully dealt with, I’m learning that most contain feelings I thought I’d dealt with, but were really just biding their time until they could burst through their carefully sealed seams and wreak havoc once again.
In a recent therapy session, I asked my counsellor, quite earnestly, her advice on how to fix a particular problem.
“I think,” she told me, as I moved to the edge of my chair, waiting for absolution. “You need to sit with that feeling long enough to understand what it really means.”
Yeah…that was definitely not what I wanted to hear. Because I know myself well enough to know that it’s the sitting in it that makes me uncomfortable. And then I realized that’s the point. I need to feel uncomfortable. I need to see that not every problem has a quick and easy solution. In fact, some don’t have any solution at all.
So that’s where I’ve been spending a lot of time lately. Sitting in the uncomfortableness of my feelings. Have I learned all the answers to life’s most asked questions? No, I have not. But do I have a much better sense of who I am and what I want? Okay, also no, but I feel like I’m getting closer.
My point (because, dear god, Kelly please make one already) is that it’s okay to take a different approach if you feel like the one you usually take isn’t serving you. Change is hard, feelings are hard, and both can suck. But there is beauty to be found in the suck if you sit in it long enough.
it’s okay to be uncomfortable
