8 ~ Advice

A Piece of Advice You Have for Others... Anything at All:

I mentioned yesterday that I have struggled before with depression and anxiety.  In the past five years, I have met with four different counselors - some very short-lived, and only one of whom I really connected with.  I have been in a healthy place for a little over a year now, and I'm so thankful for it.  I have an awesome friends-and-family support network, and I am willing to reach out and seek help from them and/or people outside my circle when I believe it is needed (I've come a long way from initially feeling shame and guilt over seeking counseling).  Although my life may seem cushy and pain-free from the outside looking in, there have been seasons of reeeeal struggle and heartbreak.  So my first word of advice is to have grace for people wherever they are on their journey because you never know what they are facing or how past stuff is still affecting them.  We all have unique personalities, backgrounds, insecurities, and problems... and we all go through the same stuff differently!

Having said all that, what's ironic to me is that the most helpful epiphany/advice I've received did not come from any counselor, family member, book, or friend.  It came from this little online article (HERE) about Disney Pixar's Inside Out!  The summary of the advice is simply: Give yourself and others permission to have negative emotions and FEEL things, because trying to quickly disconnect from sadness/anger/etc. does far more harm than good!

The movie tells the story of an 11-year-old girl named Riley as her family moves to a new state.  Her mom is stressed out with the move and her dad is struggling to adjust to the pressures of his new job. They see their daughter as the bright spot in their lives, and Riley's mom tells her that they need her to be happy for the sake of the family...

"It’s a well-meaning gesture, spoken without malice and intended to help Riley be strong. Yet it is this conversation that sets off the trouble inside Riley’s head... Riley's problem is not that she is experiencing sadness as a result of the move; her real problem is that she is trying so hard NOT to experience sadness. Inside her head, Joy literally draws a circle around Sadness and tells her not to come out of it. That fateful decision cuts Riley off from the help that she needs, driving her into depression and isolation. In one of Pixar’s most poignant scenes, Joy ultimately lets Sadness have control, Riley’s tears finally flow, and she is able to find the emotional support that she needs."  ~Ken Roach

I saw the movie in theaters and thought it was well done, but I didn't have any sort of personal epiphany until I read the above paragraph.  Riley is adjusting to major changes in her friendships, classes, outside activities, and family dynamic... yet she feels pressure to act happy and help keep everyone else happy and peaceful.  I am very aware that that has been true for me sometimes... and that feeling guilty about feeling sadness throws everything out of balance.  I would try so hard to make everything seem okay before it really was, and it created a toxic internal pressure to project false joy.  In the end, it led to feeling disconnected from myself and everyone around me, which is the basic definition of depression.  

"The world can see through our plastic smiles, and it's a recipe for an emotional breakdown if we never allow ourselves to feel difficult emotions for fear that we will be a disappointment to God."  ~K. Roach

So allowing yourself to feel every emotion is healthy -- NOT to wallow in self-pity or let the emotions take control of you, but to acknowledge it and really experience the emotion when you feel sad or angry or jealous or afraid... without the shame or worry that you will disappoint God or other people.  (It's the fastest road to genuine healing and joy, and what has kept me out of the counselor's office for over a year now).  God knows our hearts, and He wants "truth in our inmost being," so sometimes that means venting or crying out to Him in the midst of pain and heartache, like David did all through the Psalms!

To keep this in the Disney realm... there's a Princess Personality Chart that says Queen Elsa from Frozen shares my INFJ personality type.  That actually made a lot of sense to me, as her main struggle through that movie is wanting to look like she has it all together and hide what other people might see as flaws.  "Conceal, don't feel. Put on a show. Make one wrong move, and everyone will know."  It's only when she has the "Let it Go" song epiphany that everything changes for the better.  It's okay to be different, and it's okay not to be okay all the time, and thank God for that!!  Life is rough some days, mundane some days, and other days it's awesome and full of joy and goodness.  No emotion is permanent, but they are all VALID and worth acknowledging.  There are seasons and changes in life, and sometimes the struggle is very real.  When that's the case, give yourself permission to feel it and to grieve your losses however you need to.  The only way through a difficult, painful situation is THROUGH it, so don't fight it and hide from it and numb out and bottle up all your feelings. 

I still have to work at this and push myself there sometimes. Especially when I'm feeling upset over something that would seem minor to others (like people innocently asking what's wrong with my squinty eye... which quickly triggers all my Bells Palsy insecurities and immediately makes me want to hide, check the mirror, cry, say mean things about myself, and find some magic makeup that will fix or hide everything). In situations like that where my sensitive nature and past insecurities flare up hard, I am always tempted to harshly tell myself to get over it and move on, that it doesn't really matter or that other people are going through real problems and it's selfish for me to worry about that.  That happened yesterday, and instead of imagining the worst about what others must say behind my back, beating myself up for being selfish enough to feeling upset by that, or bottling up all my emotions... I got quiet and I let myself cry for a few minutes and be angry and vent to Mom and really feel the full sucky-ness of it all.  And I recovered fairly quickly... I was able to pray through it and give others the benefit of the doubt, speak some truth in love to my own heart, and thank God that I can still smile today!  Then I moved on with my day and felt back to normal.  It's a much quicker and healthier solution than how I used to respond. 

Anyway, staying connected to your heart and feeling rather than suppressing your negative emotions is healthy, so that is my random advice for today! ❤❤