What if we allowed each other and ourselves to feel pain without shame?

I’m not saying wallow in it, I’m saying just accept it as a valid emotion in your array of emotions. Then maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal and you could use it as a chance to look into and understand yourself.

A lot of people act like we should be positive or always striving for joy and perfection. I think many of those people achieve that state by being dishonest with themselves. I say that because I’ve done it. I’ve done a lot of self destructive shit, but not until I allowed myself to just fkn feel it, did I understand I could manage it on my own.

It kinda sucks when you let stuff out and people make rude comments, or they offer advice or they tell you no, you can’t feel this. We all have our inner shit and we all deserve space and acceptance to explore that. We go up, we down. That mood is gonna change, and I wish we could understand that’s okay. To be with our sadness, to be with our joy, to be present with ourselves is to be complete, not deficient. When you make someone feel deficient constantly, they’re going to lose their grip on their reality because it doesn’t compare to the perfect one people love to portray.

Yes joy and love are grand! But that shit fades, dies, gets ruined, just as any other emotion. So why single happiness and positivity out as the ideal? It’s unbalanced. Look at our society, you think this push for perfection is working out? HA!

I love people as they are. You won’t get shame or boasting from me. You’ll get the raw realness.

A final thought. I cry a lot. And I have my reasons. I vent on here as I have no one. I’ve noticed over the years that as I’m more honest to myself about my feelings I can work through a range of them quickly. I learn.

I’m not down long and even when I’m low and slow, I still grow 🖤🪷

Love you guys 🖤

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TinyViolins · 31-35, M

That's one of the biggest takeaways I've had from years of being dismissed or ignored. People don't really care, they just don't want to deal with your struggles. That's why my username here is 'TinyViolins'.

It seems people would rather feel bad and do nothing than actually take the time to listen, because god forbid they should ever have to try to understand someone else's pain. They think they can slap a hug emoji or a bumper-sticker aphorism on your wounds and things will work themselves out. It's like they've never experienced a bad day in their lives.

At least for me, I acknowledge the pain. Heck, I'm pretty sure I'm drawn to it. I think the biggest question people can ask themselves when they're stuck in a rut is: "what do I want this pain to mean?"

We don't really control what happens to us in our lives, but we can choose how to react. If you adopt a mindset that there is a lesson, or something useful, or maybe even an opportunity in this period of reflection we know as suffering, then you can do a lot to take ownership of your life and try to refocus your efforts on trying to live the life you want to live.

It's a lot easier said than done, because we often believe we've learned all that we can or that there is nothing valuable to be salvaged from this pain. Personally, I find that pain gives us the best opportunity to genuinely connect with other people. To skip past all the fake kindness and meaningless goodwill and get to the heart of what a person is really all about. Are they someone you can trust or are they full of sh*t? Do they actually care about you or are they all about themselves?

You get to see things from a whole different perspective when you're down in a hole

Keep being yourself, friend. You're an amazing person no matter what the world throws at you, and it's better for people to see you as the real you instead of wasting your time trying to get something from the fake you.