I am going to get a little personal in this post today…I hope that’s ok.
The past 3 weeks have been challenging for me in some significant ways.
Actually, we only had 2 bouts of particularly challenging things happen (COVID, with the associated quarantining, and the unexpected death of our one-year-old pup).
The entire rest of the time we had really fun and exciting things happening (we had family visit from out of town, a weekend of spiritual uplifting via the general conference of our church, Spring Break and a trip to Moab UT with some friends, Easter Sunday, and my birthday).
That’s a lot of back-to-back awesomeness, right?
But I have been having a really hard time lately because I didn’t feel like I enjoyed those things as much as I should have.
And I think that I should have enjoyed them, and thoroughly.
So I have been feeling down that I didn’t enjoy them, and guilty/frustrated at myself for not enjoying them.
I got some coaching on this, and realized that the main problem is that I think I should have enjoyed the last 3 weeks; and by not allowing the experience to be what it was, I am extending the “dis-enjoyment” into my current experience.
I’m still processing grief and sadness at the loss of our dog. But by letting myself admit that I didn’t enjoy the last 3 weeks and all these activities that I thought I should, my brain started opening up to the things that I did enjoy (because in truth, there was a LOT that I really loved).
My coach pointed out that since this is all still so fresh and sad, I am having a hard time separating out the experiences, but that time should help me see more clearly how much I really did enjoy those wonderful things, and the sadness will be its own event.
But what really struck me most was when she said “be where you need to be.”
I needed to hear that.
It’s true for me and for you. You have permission to be where you need to be, emotionally — wherever that is. Let it be what it is, and don’t try to push away or resist your experience, whether it’s the death of a beloved pet, an unexpected illness, or a head injury.
And who knows, perhaps you’ll feel differently about it when there’s some distance from the experience.
You’ve got this.
Cheers,
Bethany