So often we put our emotions on autopilot just as we put our lives on it.

We get into routines, numb and distract our senses, this doesn’t enable new experiences, and with that very little change is possible. I think a large part of this monotonous mindset is out of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, fear of failure. I’ll just keep doing the same thing over and over because it’s safe, it doesn’t make me anxious and I know nothing bad will happen. This is an attitude that needs to change before you can. We need to change our relationship with ‘bad experiences’ and start to give them as much emphasis as the ‘good’ ones.

This might sound backwards, but the older I get the more I really enjoy sitting with painful feelings. There’s something about the sick pit in your stomach that screams growth. Let’s face it, success is built almost entirely from failure. It’s something we know, it’s an understandable concept yet one I don’t think we’re all too comfortable with because we tend to shy away from it. People hide their failures, cocoon on their bad days or put on a face. I say roll with it, give it as much attention as you would a great day. Explore the feelings of sadness, anger, betrayal, whatever they may be. Bathe in them, because they have the ability to teach you something big about yourself. All those chips at your mold, the very base of who you are, are going to sculpt you into one resilient SOB and I find that so much more rewarding than feeling content all of the time. Something I’ve noticed myself doing more of is opening up. It was actually something I seriously feared I’d be unable to do after having my heart broken so often in the past. I was afraid I’d have walls up forever, feeling pain so severely once I never thought my body would allow it to happen again, but here I am at 25, grown to enjoy the feeling of feeling shit. I mean that in the least self destructive way possible. I’ve come to understand both the intense love and intense pain, sadness and happiness I’m inevitably bound to experience will teach me so much more than playing it safe ever could. It’ll build me up, break me down, and build me up once again as an even more aware version of my former self. I wasn’t always this strong. I was for a long time very vulnerable and I wouldn’t dare to voluntarily put that person through heartache. I think there comes a time in our lives when we’re well equipped to handle the pain for the pleasure. Rather than define one experience as good and one as bad, consider each a lesson of self discovery. This requires some confidence, some knowledge of yourself at your very core. To know despite what happens you can handle it, and handle it you will. Sit with your pain, chew on it, explore the entirety of every emotion. The beautiful thing about feelings is their impermanence. Embrace the permanence of this impermanence. Know like everything in life, it’s bound to pass. This isn’t me telling you to walk around trying to manifest all this negative shit, quite the opposite. When the not so pleasant feelings do come about, don’t hide from them, instead acknowledge they have positive properties. There is so much POSITIVE IN NEGATIVE. The crap is a necessary part of your development. What can I take from this while I feel it? Can this situation I’ve found myself in make me a better person? The answer is always yes if you’re willing to open yourself up to the concept. Ask the big questions Why does this hurt? Am I genuinely bruised or is my ego? What can I do to turn this around? What necessary steps do I have to take to make sure I don’t experience this a second time? In what ways is this going to make me stronger? The thing that makes me the most sad about where society has found itself, is the lack of human experience. Really understanding yourself in the intimate, and being able to share that person with others. I feel like authenticity is dying, and more and more we’re becoming the same sort of clone, worried far too much about possessions and not nearly enough about who we are at our base. I guess what I’m trying to say here is, don’t just take ‘five minutes for yourself’, take a lifetime.