Emotional Roller-coaster

There is a song by Vivian Green called “Emotional Rollercoaster.” This song spoke to when I was deepest in my trauma, and unfortunately, it still speaks to me today. Back when I was deepest in my sexual trauma, it spoke to me because of the trauma reactions that I kept reliving, and didn’t realize it. It speaks to me now because in this effort to increase my own emotional awareness it inevitably has increased the number of emotions that I allow myself to feel in a day. Back when I was stuffing emotions, and not allowing myself to feel anything, it was easy to walk around masked and free. It is so much harder to walk around unmasked, vulnerable, and feeling what you need to feel freely. We live in a society where crying is still seen as a “feminine” trait that displays a level of weakness. This is so false though. If I was on a rooftop or a mountain I would shout just how false it is to believe that someone is weak because they allow themselves to feel an emotion at the time they need to feel it. It takes strength and courage to sit with yourself. To be honest with yourself. To truly feel. If I am honest with myself, I mask often. I have been masking my feelings for the majority of my life. Masking is the easy part. Then, the double entendre with feeling, is that when you allow yourself to feel, you also have to allow yourself to listen to the negativity that is there too. Whew. Too much. I don’t want to feel sad, and then hear myself say to myself that I am a failure, or that I have made some terrible decisions in my life. Yeah, no. But the reality is that is part of the work. Being able to sit with how you truly feel about yourself. So I am not saying you have to stay there though. Getting out of that feeling does require you to feel it, listen to the thoughts, but then can you challenge them? What is based in reality verses inner critic? What is based in truth vs the lies that make you feel better? Doing the work can be an emotional rollercoaster. One thing I loved about being on an actual rollercoaster was the unexpected twists and turns and quickness of it all. The rush was everything. Then just as fast as it started it is over. We have to think this way about our emotions as well. We can allow ourselves the quick moments of feeling sad, or even melancholy, but it doesn’t have to last forever. Today is a day where I feel melancholy. I spent time with myself hearing the inner critic do it’s thing. I decided to journal. When I went back to read my last journal entry I was reminded that I often feel this way, especially within the last year, since turning 40 years old. This reminded me that despite my feelings, I have gotten back up, accomplished more, striven for the best, and have created a life for myself that I am proud of living. Are there bad things, sure. Are there skeletons, sure. Are there decisions that I wish I had not made, sure. I have my high points and my low points and the twists and turns, but eventually, the ride stops. I don’t have to stay on this emotional rollercoster anymore. I can feel it, listen, re-frame, breathe, journal, and get back to living the life that I know I am meant to live. I also try not to make decisions when I am in this state. When I am on the emotional rollercoaster it feels like everything is wrong and goes wrong. This morning, I had to wake up early to get to work, my husband and I were short with each other, my bank account was lower than I thought it was, my breakfast was hard as a rock, my office is cold, it is raining outside, and it could just keep going on and on and on. If I let it. The negative affirmations came with it too. The imposter syndrome feelings, the pity for my life feelings, and even the worst case scenario feelings about changing my life in drastic ways and how I would still feel the same. All of this before 10am and the lowest point hitting while I was at work in my office. Good grief (in my Charlie Brown voice). So why did I share my emotional rollercoaster morning with you today? Definitely not to get shame responses from strangers. You can keep the shame, I have enough of my own. I shared because I realize that people don’t know what the work can look like in real time. Healing is a journey that we travel on daily. On my journey, I was on my emotional rollercoaster this morning. I had to figure out a way to stop it, or it was going to keep jerking me around through my workday. I had to manage it, or it could have lead me to a deeper sense of depression. I had to notice that I needed to re-frame my thoughts, or my whole day was going to be a big negative ball of trash that I regretted later or emoted on to others. Been there, done that, NOPE. I hope that we can be start to be more honest with ourselves. Take time for ourselves, and love on ourselves, especially on days like today, when the emotional rollercoaster doesn’t want to allow you off the ride. I think it’s time to make another appointment with my own trauma recovery coach.

Disclaimer: This post was written before it was scheduled to post.