Permission To Wallow

Something happened.  You messed up.  You feel angry, sad, hurt, and just want to give up.  Life feels too hard, too difficult, too overwhelming.  What do you do?  Give yourself permission to wallow in these negative feelings of self-pity and despair for a period of time.  Sit in these emotions for a moment and allow yourself to feel the hurt, the pain and the sadness that these feelings bring.  Allow the anger to come out of you.  Get angry at yourself or someone who messed up and feel it.

You may have an assumption that life always will be difficult.  You may wallow in your negative view of yourself believing you never do anything right and something will always happen to you.  You wallow in the past hurts and have defined yourself based on what has happened to you.  Each situation builds on the past events and the mud gets deeper and thicker.

Now, what is really going on inside of you?  Ask yourself why the situation has created all these feelings.   Give yourself permission to walk through all of the feelings and the attitude of “woe is me.”  Have a “pity party” and admit that life is not good right now.  You do not like it, and it is not what you want in your life.  Wallow in the mud and feel sorry for yourself. 

Wallowing seems to be a standard operating procedure in our society when something happens that you did not expect or did not happen the way you desired.  People react with negativity and anger quickly and their world view is that all is bad and everyone has hurt them.  Once you start down this path you flounder and stumble your way never seeking a different direction.  You feel stuck in the mud of life.

Permission to wallow is over.  Literally set a time limit.  If you do not, negativity will consume you.  If you do not feel these feelings and admit that they are real, you will stuff them down inside and the feelings will fester inside of you.  They may cause physical and emotional harm to your body and mind.  They may also affect your behavior and how you treat others.  Admit them, feel them.

 As long as you wallow in the mud, nothing will change.  You will just get stuck and believe life always hurts and there are no good people in the world.  Begin telling yourself the truth about the situation.  You messed up, or other people messed up.  Some people hurt others but that does not mean there are no good people in the world.

You may not be able to discern what happened or why it happened.  You just know it gave you feelings that you do not want to hold onto forever.  Sometimes you have to just accept it happened and feel the hurt and let it go.  Sometimes there is no reason.  You just sink for a while in the mud of emotions and then get up and wash it off.

It is having the ability to change your focus.  Name the blessings of your life – what is good and who are the people that care about you.  You may sink because you have stepped away from the foundation that holds you up.  Give yourself permission to see the good even in the midst of the trials of life. Change your focus.

Elaine’s website – www.livinginthedifferent.com

Elaine J. Sturtz

Living In The Different