**Warning: adult language ahead!
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Allowing ourselves to feel is one of the most revolutionary things we can do at this time in our world.
When we feel, we have to face it all. When we feel pain, we start to see what is causing us pain. When we feel joy, we start to see where we’re not experiencing joy in our lives.
It can all become too much—too real—so more often than not, we numb. Because numbing is safe. Numbing is comfortable. Feeling holds real emotion. Feeling forces us to acknowledge the parts of ourselves we have buried for years to please other people. Feeling carries truth—and the truth is often fucking terrifying if we’ve been living our lives running from it.
So, we numb ourselves—in any way that gives us enough distraction to ignore how we are really feeling in our bodies and lives.
I’ve used about every predictable vice there is to numb myself—
Eating too much.
Eating too little.
Drinking.
Smoking weed.
Shopping.
Men.
My most recent vice?
Indecision, worrying, anxiety.
Paralysis by analysis.
Oh yeah, because that’s a vice too.
It’s numbed me from facing the shit I need to face, because instead, I can worry about trivial problems. It’s numbed me from choosing a life I truly want to live, out of fear of not being supported in a new place or context.
Recently, I chose to take a bat to this bullshit and break down these walls. To break up with these vices and make a choice.
I made tough choices, and put a whole lot of trust in both the process and my own two feet.
It’s okay to not know what we’re doing. It’s okay to not have all the puzzle pieces lined up or to have all the fine print figured out. Everyone deserves to live a “fuck yes” life, and this life is a choice.
It’s a choice every day to wake up and go to work at a job that makes you miserable. It’s a choice to view every challenge in a negative light, and to push and resist against it, instead of finding an easier way—like finding the choice and dropping the struggle.
And yes, we can go about our days numbing and hiding from the scary fact that we hate the city we live in, our relationship makes us miserable, or our job sucks the energy right out of us. But in doing this, nothing shifts. Nothing changes, and we can never experience our true capacity for joy.
So, when does it stop?
Whenever you choose.
Today, choose feeling.
Today, choose to drop the struggle.
It truly is as simple as that.
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Author: Annabelle Blythe
Image: Instagram @koocha22
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina
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