Swipe. Scroll. Run errands. Workout. Scroll. Scroll. Clean. Netflix for hours. Scroll. Swipe.
There are so many different avenues from which we can choose to numb out any uncomfortable feelings we’re experiencing. Many of us think, keeping ourselves busy seems like a good use of our time. Maybe you haven’t even realized that you keep yourself occupied at all times because you are trying to suppress any unpleasant emotions.
I hid under the umbrella of “productivity” for so long to try to distract myself from what I was actually going through. When I felt lonely, sad or anxious, I’d pack my schedule so tight to try to not even allow myself to have a chance to feel it. But obviously that didn’t work, I still felt the underlying current of those feelings, and they prevented me from showing up and being present in my life.
I didn’t realize that I was numbing until I told my therapist about how I have such a hard time unwinding when I get home, and I tend to do things like cleaning or baking instead of relaxing. She asked me, “What would happen if you just let yourself be?” I didn’t know how to answer her.
Why is this a problem?
You may be thinking, well this certainly isn’t as serious as a drug or alcohol problem so it’s not an issue. I agree it’s not as “serious” but it doesn’t mean it still isn’t detrimental to your emotional well-being. When we are constantly stimulated, we don’t have the chance to notice what our body is trying to tell us.
Our body is screaming “Slow down! Acknowledge me. Take a deep breath!” But we can’t hear it over the errands, the Netflix or social media scrolling. The truth is, we can’t heal from anything we are experiencing until we acknowledge those feelings, sit with them to understand where they are coming from, and let ourselves heal. Dr. Rebecca Ray articulated it so beautifully in the image below.
How do I heal?
One of my favorite authors Glennon Doyle describes sitting with your feelings in a yoga metaphor — how fitting! 🙂 She calls this concept “staying on your mat.” Doyle realized this concept in an actual yoga class, when she told the teacher that her intention was to just make it through the yoga class on her mat. The teacher told her that the hardest thing you can do on your mat is just to be still. Almost any yoga teacher I know agrees — the most challenging part of yoga is the stillness. Not the moving, arm balances or down dogs, it’s just being still with your feelings. And it applies to our everyday life.
Healing starts when we allow ourselves to sit in the stillness. When those feelings arise, instead of reaching for the phone or finding a chore to do, pause and take a breath. Notice what comes up for you. Maybe today we can only sit with it for 30 seconds. Then tomorrow we make it to a minute. We then build our way up until after continuously showing up for ourselves day after day, we overcome. Then we do it all over again the next time we are noticing those feelings.
I’ll end with this powerful quote from Doyle’s book, Love Warrior.
The journey of the warrior. The warrior journey is staying present with love and pain. Feeling them both, letting them bubble up in my body and come and go without hitting an easy button to escape. Without overeating or boozing or shopping or sexing or snarking or scrolling my way off my mat. Believing that anger, unbelonging, loneliness, fear, doubt—all of these, too, shall pass. And I would survive them all, remembering that all the courage and wisdom I need to become the woman I want to be is inside my love and my pain. If I transport out of it, I will miss my transformation. I must stop being afraid of pain and start being afraid of easy buttons.
– Morgan