It all starts with YOU

Recently I’ve had to take a step back and do some serious re-evaluating of my life. I was falling “victim” (if you will) to an overwhelming wave of emotions. To some that would seem really... normal. People do go through different strides of emotion on a daily basis. However, when that wave hits you like a god damn tsunami and you don’t have to first clue on how to save yourself, now we’ve got something a little more detrimental going on.  

When a person feels a certain way whether its happiness, sadness, anger... whatever it is- it’s always associated with an underlying reaction to an event that has either happened in the present or like most, an unresolved situation creeping up from the past.

The first rule of thumb: There is a cause and effect for everything we think, feel and do.

Oh... you thought your feelings just impacted you... WRONG.

What you feel is connected to what you are thinking. What you think stems from a past situation or from the present. Our feelings turn into actions. You know when you say something spiteful out of anger??? That’s how this cause and effect thing works. Because now, you’re feelings are impacting someone else. What’s even worse is that it’s a negative effect you are now giving off.

I’m going to roll off this whole “speaking out of anger” as an example for a moment and it begins with one simple question: How did you get to that point?

If you said pent up anger, you are right on the money.

When someone does something we don’t like, or say’s something that perhaps hurt our feelings or did something that occurred TO you, that had a negative effect... what did you do in those moments?

That’s right, you did NOTHING. You bit your tongue and held that grudge (consciously or subconsciously) till opportunity presented itself or till that deadly trigger moment hit you. Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. However, if you are reading this, you are now aware. There are no excuses anymore.

What could have been another approach you could have taken that would have had a more positive effect long term rather than a short term “positive” effect so that you didn’t have to confront that person who upset you to begin with?

That’s just it, change happens by action. You ever hear that phrase “know when to hold them, know when to fold them” – When is it worth confronting and when it is worth it to just walk away. When someone does something that makes you feel negative (anger, sadness), the first step is to understand WHY you feel that way. I don’t know if you know this but sometimes, when we’re angry at someone, more often than anyone really cares to admit, that anger really had nothing to do with that person at all. They just got caught up in the cross fire, a classic trigger moment. That’s why it is so important to understand your feelings and what thoughts are leading you to feel that way.

SO... knowing all of this, let’s scale it back to the beginning.

Here I am, tossed up in my own whirl wind of emotions, some are positive and some are negative. And this leaves me to ask myself that one simple question- How in the fuck did I get here?

If there is one thing you take away from this, it should be to always take the time to identify your feelings and face them. No delays. For all we know, all we have is today, so quit banking on tomorrow.

I got here, because I banked on tomorrow. And tomorrow turned into today, which turned into another day and the cycle continued to the point where I can’t even recall or make sense of what set me off to begin with.  I hit that pesky snooze button!

It can be a hard fight back to the light if you continue to live in denial that you’ve fallen into this spiral. You can’t sit there and tell me this kind of thing will never happen to you, or hasn’t already. It will. What will separate you from everyone else is that you now have the tools to identify what is going on and acknowledge that, hey maybe I should confront this person or decide, you know what- it’s not really worth my time or energy and move on.

Last but not least- the third rule of thumb: If you choose to move on, do so. You can’t hold on and move on at the same time. Life doesn’t work that way.

It all starts with YOU.