Beautiful Oops!

This week, by far, has been the longest week! Maybe the fact that I've worked 10-12 hour days the past few days might have something to do with it. Not only have I worked long days, but Tuesday at work was by far one of the most stressful/ bad days I have encountered in a long time.

When it rain it pours right?

Thankfully, it's Thursday now. I'm one and a half days away from having a little bit of a weekend. I'm looking forward to have a "social" run in a half marathon with Shelly on Sunday. Typically for me, all my runs are social but I get to label this one as an official social run because Shelly won't be competing with herself on this one! Hahaha! Welcome to my way of running Shelly :)

I really have had so much on my mind over the past few weeks. I'm glad I started writing again. It's amazing how writing my thoughts down really helps me process. I'm a verbal processor anyways, so typically I will talk my way through my thoughts, but there has been so much that talking hasn't been enough. On top of talking and writing blogs again, I'm also journaling and painting just to try and get everything out!

It really was like Pandora's box was opened in me and with one tap, all these emotions exploded inside of me.

I remember the day, almost to the exact time when I just shut down. This has happened once before, it was when I was working as an in home counselor. I'm an extremely empathetic person and when I get around many intense emotions or if I start feeling intense emotions I'll just shut down. I just reach a point where I don't want to feel that much heart break. So instead of allowing myself to feel the heart break and just break down myself, I repress whatever I'm feeling.

This shut down mode is by far the longest one I've had. It lasted close to 8 months. So for over 8 months, any sadness, anger, or hurt I felt, I just pushed it away rather than dealing with it. The thing about pushed away emotions is that they never really leave. They're just hidden, waiting to resurface.

There are consequences to repressing emotions. You find yourself doing things that normally you would never do. You lose respect for yourself and what normally you would have had the strength to say no to, you don't have the ability to do it. I'm not too surprised by this, because if you think about it, repressing emotions takes a whole lot of energy. You're left with very little energy to use self control.

So here I am, all 8 months of emotions exploding out of me. I have been tempted many times to repress it all back. Telling myself that it will all fix itself, just put it back in the box but I know this is a lie. It will not fix itself in the box. If I put it back in the box, I'm denying my emotions, thoughts, and feelings which is leading me back into denial, which leads me into deceit, which leads me into living a lie. THAT IS NOT ME AND I REFUSE TO LIVE A LIE.

At first, I was not happy about all this. I was mad at myself and really felt I had let myself and God down. Then a children's book that I read with Ella came into my mind. It's called Beautiful OOPS! It's a book showing how you can take a mistake that you might make when drawing, painting, etc and turn it into something beautiful, different, or creative. The same goes for my mistakes and screw ups. Even though what might look like a disaster can really be turned into something just as beautiful as what you initially started out with.

I'm mean, think about it. Some of the most beautiful poems, songs, paintings, books, etc came from people exploding with emotions. Not just one type of emotion, but all emotions.

Out of all I'm having to face, I'm confident in 2 particular things that I know about myself that will help me through. 1. I always looks for the good in all situations 2. When I set my mind to something, there is nothing that will hold me back from accomplishing it.