As the start of my “Finding Joy” series, this post might feel counterintuitive. But, I am a firm believer that you cannot fully experience any emotion if you don’t give yourself permission and space to experience all emotions. I want to preface this post, and all posts to follow, by stating that I am in no way an expert. These are just a summary of the advice that I wish I could have given my younger self who was stuck down deep in the dark pit of depression for many years. During that time, I felt alone and lost, so I am writing in hopes of helping others feel a little less alone and a little less lost.
You are okay just to be, just as you are.
You don’t need my permission, but sometimes it feels good to be validated by other people (especially a stranger on the internet who is a truly neutral third party). You have permission not to always be joyful, it is okay. It does not make you a bad person, a bad friend, a bad partner, a bad parent, etc. It makes you human. The reality is that life sucks sometimes and being a human is hard. Society often puts unnecessary pressure on us to be happy and joyful at all times. The message society gives is that if you aren’t happy, then you must be ungrateful, lazy, or broken.
You cannot have joy without sorrow. A large part of the human experience is having access to a full spectrum of emotions. Joy is only one piece of that. It is hard to fully experience joy when you don’t give yourself permission to feel sadness, anger, jealousy, and disappointment. You can’t have the “good” without the “bad”.
If you can do anything for yourself, please release the shame and the guilt. Give yourself a big hug and remind yourself, “I am okay to be where I am at in life”.
Release the pressure to be perfect. You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t even have to be good at things. I can guarantee that your purpose on this earth is not to exhaust all your energy trying to meet the standards and expectations of others. Doing that leaves no emotional energy left over to actually enjoy this beautiful precious life.
Take back your power and your energy. Set boundaries. Give yourself grace and patience and love. See how that shifts the way your life feels. See if this gives you the energy to authentically show up in your life for yourself and others.
Once you have the space in your life to start finding more joy, join me back here where I will talk about some of the ways I have been able to incorporate more joy and balance into my life.
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