Riding the Waves

She said it is like riding a wave, you start at the bottom, hit the top and come crashing back down. This can happen once or it can be a storm.

You can either run from the waves, or ride them but only one way will ever teach you anything.

My therapist used this metaphor for emotions.

I went into her office with my eyes sunken in, no energy left to even pretend to be OK.

Life caught up with me, working so hard to be fervently busy turns out not to be my solution for healing. Apparently it is only keeping me broken for longer.

I have a lot of emotions inside of me, as I have spoken of before, but I am honestly tired of feeling them. I am done or at least I want to be.

So I threw myself into life. I threw myself into work, into my studies, into my running, into being the single girl and going out.

I thought I could be perfect at all of them. I told my therapist this, my need to be doing something all the time.

She looked at me like I was crazy (which I am pretty sure therapists are taught not to do, but whatever)

She told me to stop trying to be something I am not. She asked what made me happy, I listed:
1) Running
2) Hiking
3) Just being in nature
4) Reading
5) One on one or small group time with close friends and family
6) Serving people
7) Bath time

Not once did I list going out or doing the stereotypical things people my age do.

I was at with my team the other day and I thought "I need to be older" because I get along with people older than me a lot better than people my own age.

So my therapist's goal was to accept what I enjoy doing and not force myself to be someone I am not.

Not rocket science, but easier said then done.

She told me to treat myself like I would a toddler. She told me to give myself endless love, to be OK with mistakes, to take my time with life and be curious. She even told me to read myself a bed time story and tuck myself in.

Essentially she was teaching me to care for me. She was teaching me that it was OK to be fragile. That it is OK to be stuck in a storm where the waves don't seem to have an end. The sooner I start riding the waves, the sooner the storm will pass.

I think I just need to get a really good wet suit.

We all have life storms, and when we get the rough times and we recover from them, we should celebrate that we got through it. No matter how bad it may seem, there's always something beautiful that you can find. -Mattie Stepanek