Once I slow down and give up on the impossible pursuit of rushing through life, I realize how often I was stifling my emotions, my thoughts, my body’s feelings, other people as they are, and the facts of life as unchangeable occurrences. I realize how often I tried to ignore them with distractions, stop them with denial and force, and run from them with anxiety, doubt, and depression.

I wanted to speed things back up when I noticed this phenomenon…this habit. However, I also remember how anxiety, doubt, and depression actually felt…I remember how ignorance, denial, and stifling actually felt. It felt like trying to hold back a 10 foot wave as it came crashing down on my head smacking me to the shore…instead of swimming with the wave as it came crashing down on me. Both still hurt, but trying to control the wave brought more pain, doubtful mistrust, and anticipatory fear into my current and future days unnecessarily.

So, I decided to turn my attention back to this present moment with all of these pressing experiences to face and memories to process. I just sat there as the fear crept in. It was like looking into that dark hallway…staring into that mirror as I turned the lights on…right after watching that terrorizing horror film late at night with all the lights off.

I saw that my inner self was shaking, so my consciousness encouraged me that we will do this together with warmth and positive resilience. “I’m with you. You just spent the last 3 hours with your senses entrenched in a very nervous event. Our brain is trying to process it now. It will try to no matter how much we distract ourself from it. Let’s face whatever it may be…directly.”

We walked into the unknown…we steadily took in the pain…together. When we wanted to turn away, we stood there and faced it…and didn’t die…I am still here…and more in tune, confident, and nurturing of myself than I was yesterday.