I am a smarty pants and whenever I am asked how I feel I usually answer "I feel with my hands" and smile. It isn't even a genuine smile, but one of those fake, clown smiles. I would rather get a groan or a laugh from another person than talk about myself.
When someone we know suffers a huge loss or a minor setback and we say that we understand, offer support, but then order a pizza and watch a movie. We feel for that person and we feel more when it is a friend or someone loved, but you can't really feel what they feel in that moment. We aren't designed that way. Even if you have experienced what the other person is experiencing, your mind protects you and doesn't let you go fully back to that painful place and so you still cannot say that you understand how they feel at this time. You can remember how it felt for yourself, but we instinctively want to survive.
This brings me to when bad things or setbacks happen to us. We immediately go to that place where we are so hard on ourselves and the bar is so much higher than it would be for those we care about. Our bar must be higher because we feel so very low. Not every circumstance is the same, not every person handles it the same way, and we don't all recover in the same way.
Is being relentlessly positive after a long cry the way to bob above the water? Is it to be with friends? Is it to go for a run? Well, I don't run and I can't run as it would surely kill me. Or do you ever get to a point where you feel like this is the one that you will never recover from?
This topic takes me to several points in my life where I wished I had made a different decision, waited a little longer, or walked away. I've always stayed positive and I work very hard to keep in mind what things are important and what things really aren't. I'm not always right about those things, but I still remain positive.
I guess you can lower the bar enough to feel normal again, but have higher future expectations without settling. Right?
