This Is How NOT Hiding Your Feelings Actually Makes You Stronger

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I was on the bus the other day and I heard a guy say “I had to take time off work, it was months, months of money I lost, but I knew I had to get my head straight first before I could get back into it again”

That statement alone inspired me. I was eagerly trying to telepathically send him a message from my brain to his saying “Good on you that’s the best way to go about it!”

I felt like I knew him from a past life because what he said correlated so well with my values. I would have done the same thing. I agree with you, human. I think you made the right decision. I feel relieved that you realised when you push yourself too far it eventually catches up with you. You need a break sometimes and that’s perfectly okay.

Taking a break can mean several things and it’s as easy or as hard as you make it. Whether it’s taking time out from working at a desk all day and having 5 minutes to yourself to get a sense of clarity back or whether it’s just waking up in the morning and lurking your ex’s profile which has ruined your mood for the entire day and deciding to not check your phone first thing in the morning… I hear your problem world and sure enough I have a solution. Make a conscious effort to remove yourself from the scene or same old routine that’s pushing your emotions to a negative blip. Take time out.

I can relate this to many everyday scenarios. For instance, an elite sports player. If a player trains so hard but doesn’t recover properly; get the right amount of sleep, consume the appropriate nutrients to replenish or do a necessary cool down after their session, they will feel worse the next day. It can affect all aspects of their health – social, mental and physical. We forget to look after ourselves and take extra care to ensure we don’t crash and burn.

Personally, I think our biggest problem is that we forget we have a choice. You can decide to keep feeling the same way or you can make the choice to do things differently. Living in an illusion that you’re not going hard enough or that your own personal problems aren’t as bad as other people is WRONG.

Yes, on a broader spectrum, fighting with your parents is less harmful than children starving in third world countries but how you feel is just as important as anyone else and it comes with a message.

The message is to step back and reboot yourself so you can revive and thrive. I’m not saying to give up, I’m saying to recognise how you feel so that you don’t lose all your energy in telling yourself you’re fine when in reality, you’re not.

I feel like a lot of people carry the mentality of not wanting to look weak. Too often, people disregard their feelings thinking they will go away. But sometimes it’s a sign from your soul that you need to pause and reflect and if that sign isn’t clear enough then I don’t know what is.

Some days it will feel like you’re doing everything wrong, that your best isn’t good enough or that you’re not exactly where you want to be in life. Yet, we don’t realise that this is the cycle and meaning of life. The reason why we’re pushed to our limits and confronted with hardships is to test how well we get back up again and keep going.

You can hide your feelings and act like you’re fine or you can rediscover what’s important and help yourself, so you can come back even stronger and try again.

A break could even be the best decision you make in order to live a fruitful, fulfilling life. Self-care is so vital and crucial to a dynamic lifestyle, it will favour you in the long run. If you’re the type of person that always tries to help others, you will realise in time that it’s important you love yourself first. If we just give our own selves the love, compassion and acceptance we so freely give away then the world would be a much happier place. Hope and light is created in an effort to save ourselves.