Negative emotions can make major life changes difficult to handle. However, I find certain positive emotions can make things even more difficult. I don’t mean emotions such as excitement over new adventures, relief from getting out of a painful situation, etc. I mean the emotions that I don’t want to admit I have, even to myself.
When someone I dislike leaves my life, I almost always feel a sense of relief. Sometimes, however, there’s also some sadness mixed in. This usually occurs when my relationship with that person had a mix of highs and lows. While I don’t miss the hard times, I do miss the pleasant times. I also miss the potential of who that person could have been, which is often nothing more than the image in my head of who I once thought them to be.
Despite the pain they’ve caused me, there might still be a part of me that is drawn to that person and will miss them when they’re gone, even if I don’t always understand why. I stuck around as long as I did because of the good times. Although it may be the best thing for my mental health to stop seeing them, that’s not always easy. It can be hard to acknowledge the good, the pleasant, the fun, and the enjoyable that existed alongside the dark, the painful, the abusive, and the unpleasant. It’s way easier to cut someone off if our interactions were all bad and no good. But since that’s rarely been the case in my life, failing to acknowledge the good times that I’ll miss keeps me feeling stuck. That’s why noticing whenever there was some pleasure, some enjoyment, and even some peace is important for healing the pain and moving forward.
When a situation was negative or at least ended badly, I often wish that it hadn’t gone that way. I’ll wish instead that it’d been a positive, healthy situation and that it had ended on a good note. Pretending to not have those feelings and desires keeps the pain going and prevents me from moving forward and getting past the grief. I’d rather be honest with myself and notice all the feelings so I can let them go and be free.
It’s become fairly easy to acknowledge the negative emotions in almost any situation. However, it’s still difficult to acknowledge the positive emotions that appear even in dark times. Simply having this realization has been helpful, as has remembering how I always feel relieved when I finally acknowledge the emotions I’d been hiding from myself. That then frees up a lot of energy that I can spend on more enjoyable things. What’s your experience been with this? I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment if you like and I’ll see you in the next post.