How To: Survive Your Bullshit

How To: Dance In The Rain But Acknowledge Your Pain

The elephant in the room.
A piece of your leftover salad from lunch still lodged awkwardly between your teeth.
A booger slightly hanging out of your left nostril.

Those things you want to ignore but somehow just find yourself staring at...or thinking about it. Paranoid that you might be experiencing one of the things above.

One of my many personal battles is trying to learn to acknowledge an issue in my life without letting it take over my life.

When do you begin to mourn too much?
When are you crying too much about a situation?

"Hey, it's been a few months, I know you're sad but you have to learn to deal with it."

Fuck you.

I'm not advocating for basking in one's self pity but I am a firm believer of allowing yourself to feel everything you're going through.

I think there's a difference between letting your daily bullshit paralyze you and just dealing with your daily bullshit.

But I also think there's a difference between acknowledging your pain and rushing to get better.

Is it when people can no longer respond to your emotions that it becomes too much? When they no longer can relate or they can no longer handle it?

Everyone has a language when they're in their emotions. Some people like to talk to others, some like to keep to themselves, some people like to be distracted and some people like to relieve their situations so they can understand them better.

Basically, we all cope differently. But when do you find yourself spiraling in your 'coping' mechanisms?

Because they aren't all healthy ways!

This is my new mantra I've been going by as of this week.
"I'll dance in the rain but I won't forget it's raining."

Let's steer off topic a bit (don't worry, I'll bring it full circle)

People have this lowkey obsession with happiness.
Achieving it. Creating it.
Which is an amazing thing! Please, if you're going to be obsessed with something, please let it be finding your happiness.

BUT LET'S GET SOMETHING CLEAR!

You cannot fabricate happiness. It is not something you can create in a lab (I'm sorry but medicine will NOT make you blissfully happy, we'll get to that on another post)

We mimic what we think is happiness from social media, from what we see on television or in movies and so on.

People imitate what they see. What they think is happiness.

But we all play a role. We all have a facade.

So the same way we strive for this imitation happiness is comedic.
Because we are so obsessed with being happy that we forget it's okay to be sad.

Hell, maybe if we allowed ourselves to be sad. Allowed ourselves to look up at the sky and say "Hey, it's raining. I'm not gonna spin around and act like this is okay. It's not. Shit sucks. But I'm gonna dance in this rain and not for some fake inspo reason. Not because life is 'terribly beautiful' Because it straight up sucks and my pain deserves to be acknowledged."

There should be no rush to our pain because there is no rush to our happiness. If you can't force one, why try to force the other?

You see people maybe on your Snapchat or instagram with a seemingly amazing life.

Perfect relationship, perfect house, perfect job etc

But it's more than just people showing us what they want to show... we all alter our smiles a bit. We all put a filter over our pain and shit maybe even some of our genuine happiness.

We all crop out the things we don't like and present ourselves to the public a certain way.

You may paint your face on everyday and when it begins to crack and people start to point it out.
That's when they start to notice you're being 'too' sad. Or you haven't gotten over a situation.

A question that's haunted me lately is do we ever get over a situation or do we learn to live with it?
Perhaps both. Or one. Or neither.
Don't let that discourage you. Think about it.

We learn to accept the rain. You know how beautiful THAT is? Now that's a flower.

You cannot prevent rainfall but you rejoice when it comes because guess what rain means?
Growth.
Guess what sunshine means? Growth.

So please don't crop out your vines or weeds. Don't filter your petals.
Don't silence yourself.

Please acknowledge your pain no matter how minuscule and damnit, don't let anyone tell you that you feel too much.

Or you're too emotional.

Acknowledge your rain and don't rush yourself to recovery.

But while you acknowledge your rain, know that it won't last forever. Don't forget to look up when the clouds disperse. Don't forget to look up when the sun is shining while rain pours.

Don't forget to acknowledge when it stops.

Pay attention to the weather in your life and be grateful for every season because it is always a growing season.

Stunted growth will only begin when you ignore each weather change. When you fail to acknowledge not only your rain but your sunshine as well.