Yesterday, I wrote a beautiful blog post. It was from the heart and it was timely and it felt like a message that someone needed to hear. All the more, I had written it with five kids in my house trying to enjoy the start of their summer vacation while I slogged away at the computer to get some work done before I spent time with them.

I got ready to publish the post only to be faced with the dreaded spinning wheel. 

I let my laptop sit for a few moments. No change. 

I walked away and came back ten minutes later. No change.

I tried canceling the save request to get back to the compose screen so I could copy and paste the content and try again. No change.

I tried several other methods of capturing the content but at that point, I couldn’t even scroll to read the content out loud and record it for transcription. 

I gave up. I hit refresh, hoping against all odds that at least a good portion of it would remain.

No such luck. I closed the laptop and walked away, shaking my head, trying to laugh but feeling on the verge of tears instead. 

It was a blog post. It was not a big deal. But I felt defeated. It’s funny how those little things can affect you so much when you have other feelings and thoughts flitting around in your head. 

Just One of Those Days…

Yesterday was one of those days. Nothing bad had actually happened, but I was worn out. I felt like a wet rag that had been wrung out one too many times. As Tolkien said, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” 

I could not pinpoint the source. I had been sleeping fine, nothing unusual. No major changes in my diet or schedule. No big events or bad news or issues. In fact, I had gotten some good news recently. Why, for the love of all things holy and sacred, was I feeling like this?

I fought it off as long as I could. Then I gave in and just let everything hit me. I let the sadness and the frustration and the fear wash over me as though I was sitting on the shore and refusing to move as the waves pummeled into me. I let the confusion of why I was feeling this way flood my nervous system and do its thing. 

Then, once the core burst died down, I rested. I sat in my favorite chair and watched one of my favorite shows. I snuggled with my new favorite blanket and I stayed off my phone. I avoided social media as much as possible and when I caught myself gravitating toward it, I put my phone away. 

The irony of the situation hit me this morning. That blog post I wrote yesterday? It was all about being ok with unanswered questions. It was about how faith can carry us through the times where we don’t have all (or any of) the answers and how the world continues to spin in spite of our confusion.

I have no idea why I felt that way yesterday. It could have been because of a million reasons… but the truth is, I might never know. And that’s ok. 

Sitting With My Emotions

For the past 20 years, I have learned to look for the root cause of the problem that I am facing. To look beyond the emotions and get to the essence of what was actually happening. To dig a little deeper and get past the surface reaction to a situation and see what is laying in wait below the rippling waters. 

But for the past five years, I have been teaching myself to sit with the emotions. To let them do their thing and then bid them farewell as they dissipate. I have struggled for a long time to understand what people meant when they talked about doing this. What good was it to sit with your emotions if you weren’t probing for more information, hunting for a cause, or dissecting and psychoanalyzing the hell out of it?

Sometimes, the down days don’t need to be fixed. Sometimes they don’t need to be reframed or made better. Sometimes you don’t need to be cheered up. Sometimes you just need to sit with the emotion like you would a grieving friend when you don’t know what to say. You just sit there and be present. You let them do what they need to do and you just be there to witness it, to support it, to care.

So that’s what I did last night. I sat with the emotions. I let them wash over me and I didn’t try to distract myself, or pick them apart or even question them. I just let them be. And they came. And they went. 

Emotions Aren’t Good or Bad. They Just Exist.

Emotions are not inherently good or bad. Emotions just exist. It doesn’t matter what or how you’re feeling. What matters is how you act when you’re going through them. How you treat other people. How you treat yourself. And knowing your limits on those emotional days is also a good thing. If I string two or more bad days together, I need to make a change. 

But yesterday, I needed to sit. I needed to feel. I needed to experience. 

And you know what? This blog post is so much better than the one I wrote yesterday. So I guess it all works out in the end. Love and light to you all… 💛.