*spoilers for chapter 36 of To Live Two Lives*
🎊Yet Another Soapbox Moment🎉
wow, that took no time at all, did it ?
this one's going to be a bit shorter, i think, because most of y’all are probably already familiar with the notion that some feelings are Too Big, Too Strong, and Too Wily to dissipate within a few hours of crying.
so, this conversation will be about distraction instead.
sitting with our feelings, as arthur can attest, is fucking exhausting. and more over, we can get sucked into it way past any point of benefit if we're not careful. we need to honor our feelings, but we can't wallow in them.
when i finally grasped the idea of how to truly sit with my feelings, i (as i am wont to do) took it way too far immediately. “sitting with” became “ruminating”, “ruminating” became “wallowing”, and “wallowing” became “ignoring the rest of my life for the sake of wrapping up this shit all in one go so that i never have to think about these feelings ever again”.
Too Big, Too Strong, Too Wily, and all that.
obviously, i needed time away from the sitting. but i was so convinced that any form of distraction was just the gateway drug that would send me right back to my escapist fantasy and emotional avoidance, which would inevitably undo all of my progress.
so, what's the difference between distraction and avoidance ? my therapist, of course, had the answer:
the difference lies in a promise to myself.
an honest promise to return to my feelings again soon.
in making this promise, and (crucially) in following through with this promise, i've not only learned how to moderate my bouts of sitting, but i've built a solid groundwork of self-trust. i've built an intrapersonal relationship founded on respect for my feelings as well as respect for the rest of my life. i've built a list of priorities where my priorities are ordered in terms of time, but not importance.
self-respect, in a way. sharon would be so proud.
so, if you’re anything like me, easily burnt out from the tendency to constantly over-sit, try this. promise yourself that you'll return to your feelings after you've had your distraction. and, frankly, promise yourself that you'll have another distraction ready after you've sat with your feelings again.
(also, many thanks to my therapist for helping me finally define what “moderation” means.)
well. this wasn't quite as short as i'd expected... but that's about par for the course for me, isn't it ? how else could we have ended up on chapter 36 with 120k words ?
until next time, then ! <3
