Don’t think about next week, I told myself. Deal with today.
Christmas was coming at me like a runaway Santa sleigh. It felt like we had to visit five sides of the family all at once. And have a gift for what seemed like sixty-four people. The day after Christmas, I was taking my daughter to Los Angeles for a week-long modeling competition. And the day after we got back, I was due in court. My ex was suing me for a ridiculous amount of money.
Just get through today, I repeated.
Compartmentalizing can be a useful skill when stressful events are stacked on top of one another. It helps to deal with them as they come.
But what about difficult emotions? Is compartmentalizing them useful?
It can be as long as we face those emotions. Running away from our feelings means we’re denying ourselves the opportunity to grow.
We all have emotions we’d prefer to avoid. There are things we’ve done we’re not proud of. Painful memories.
But refusing to accept them, burying them, denying them means we’re missing out on a chance to see ourselves as whole.
Unfelt emotions become stuck energy. Stuck energy keeps us from moving freely in the world.
When an unwanted emotion starts to emerge, rather than stuff it down, jot it down. Using a pen and paper allows our rational intellect to have a say. Our logical brains can create the distance needed.
How is the feeling showing itself? In a snippet of a dream? An image in the mind? A memory that doesn’t quite make sense? A sensation in the body? A desire to scream or cry or run for the hills?
Start by writing a few words and simply sitting with them. When you’re ready, pick up the thread again and follow it a little further, always with compassion. If this process starts to become overwhelming, you may want to process them with the help of a spiritual advisor.
We all have parts of ourselves that we don’t want to look at. But hiding behind them we can find authenticity. Inspiration. Buried treasure.
We can come out the other side feeling renewed. Wiser. And with the realization that this is what it is to be human.