Ideas of what to do in hard times when you feel guilty for feeling sad

“it’s a privilege to mourn”

Keep thinking about @xicanisma_ ’s  post which rings so true as to how I’ve been feeling of late. Torn between fighting to create joy and experience pleasure and trapped in “freeze” mode, with a stubborn frozen shoulder aptly representing where I’m holding grief and pain, pushing and forcing through it with determination when my body just wants relief, tenderness, softness, ease, to laugh at animal memes, to dance with unbridled euphoria and not have to think about tragedy. grieving. holding space.

Do you relate?

The dichotomy of this life is strange.

We occupy so many spaces and carry so many feelings often simultaneously, and often privately.

Where do we put it?

How can we find safe spaces to put down the load and process it if possible?

and what are you doing for yourself in this regard?

Here are some things that I try, which I interchange depending on what I need:

1) rest. Pure rest not kind of semi-working with laptop rest. Which sometimes makes me weep with relief tbh

2) take a bath. Similar reaction (does anyone else experience a kind of orgasm-spasm in your belly when you lay in an Epsom salt bath?...just me?)

3) purge some words via my morning pages (i know i talk about them aaaaall the time sorry to those of you who have known me since 2007 and are tired of my bs)

4) dance . bathroom discos. supermarket bops. whatever works. just to move and get that processing moving through and out the body.

5) meditation- ideally with breathwork , mantra and mudra, cause if I’m feeling too scattered to sit, it helps with focus.

but tbh, it all starts with admitting i’m tired. sad. overwhelmed. in need of creating space for myself to process. which is often the hardest thing to do (but gets easier with practice).

So for those of you that are struggling with where to put all of these feelings, i really recommend you exploring something from the list or explore something that speaks to you, perhaps there’s something that you do that takes you into a zone where you’re able to just be present with yourself and hold space for processing whatever feeling might be stuck. especially if you notice it stuck in your body.

So that’s all for now. a small offering of encouragement to acknowledge your feels and to allow yourself space to process.

Feel welcome to share yours below or meet me on instagram and let’s create a mini directory of options to put down the load for awhile ❤️ 

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