Emotional pain

So many of us sit with pain.

For me, it often showed up right after work. I was so unhappy. I would cry alone in my closet. Most of the time begging God to help me feel better. To just help me have better thoughts. Trying to negotiate how I would give anything to feel better.

I would curl up into a ball in that closet and just cry.

I would buy things thinking that would make me feel better. It didn't, only made me feel worse about myself because trying to spend my way to happiness only took me down in debt. I never felt better.

I looked to my husband to make me feel better. I remember putting so much pressure on him for my emotional health and would blame him for me not feeling good enough.

I was in full blown victim mode and I couldn't see it. It was a painful cycle that I went through for so many years.

On the outside looking in you would have never known. But that's the way pain works. It has an incredible way of being able to hide.

I tried to "out do" my bad feelings by achieving in my career. I did great things in the military and in my corporate career, but none of those ever made me feel better about the way I felt about myself. A newly printed award or degree didn't mask the miserable I felt.

Then one day I heard this: "Your thoughts create your feelings and ultimately your results."

I didn't understand. How was I personally responsible for the shitty way I felt? It wasn't me. It was everything else.

The next time I was back in my closet crying on the floor I remembered that phrase and started to question a few things. From there, little by little I started to lean in and see some of the truth.

It was difficult to accept that I was the only one responsible. It was hard to swallow my pride and see what I was doing. How reckless my emotional health was. How much I pushed my family away. It was hard to say it was all me.

But it was and I couldn't hide behind it anymore.

I started to do work in me for me. I held belief that it really was my thoughts and if I was powerful enough to sit in emotional pain for years and still achieve great things, what could I do if I changed my thoughts to create what I really wanted?

That's when I stopped crying in that closet. That's when I learned how to manage my mind.

Maybe your version of painful emotional health isn't crying in the closet or buying things. Maybe it's showing up by limiting you at work, or by sabotaging your marriage, or your weight (I used to eat to feel better except it never worked either). Or maybe it's showing up by causing you to doubt yourself to go after your dreams.

I know that feeling. You are not alone.

You can feel bad and win.

It all starts with just one thought and you can borrow one of mine to start with:

"Even at my weakest, I am unshakable."