“If my weekend had looked like that, I would be furious – violent, even.”

That’s what a friend said after I told her about my weekend, which included things like:

• The web developer I’d been working with vanished into thin air two weeks before launch day.
• A $3000 (completely unexpected) bill landed in my mailbox.
• A series of painful conversations led me to decide it was time to find a new place to live.

After my friend’s initial shock, she followed up with a list of suggestions for how I could unleash the frustration she was sure I had to be feeling.

• Have a good cry.
• Swear like a sailor.
• Take an old piece of furniture into the backyard and go at it with a baseball bat.
• Crack open a bottle of wine and drown your sorrows.
• Scream like the house is on fire.

But here’s the problem I had with her advice: despite the awfulness of my weekend, I was not furious or violent at all.

In fact, I was feeling quite the opposite. I was kinda… joyous about it all (more on that in a minute).

But my friend was fully in a state of Ack! This is a major crisis! so she gave me a list of release-the-rage activities, even though I had no rage to release.

Because someone I respect and love said “If that happened to me, I would be so angry,” I started to wonder if something was wrong with me for not feeling the same way.

And very quickly, I concluded that yes, in fact, I was ‘wrong’ for feeling joyous. My joy, I told myself, was premature.

So I tried to fix me.

I tried to pinch up blustery, black rage. I tried to pull down an emotional tornado so that I could let it all out.

I tried so hard to feel what she said she would feel.

Any of this sound familiar?

• She loves shopping at this store, but the staff there are always rude to me: what’s wrong with me?
• She is collaborating with that person but something about them seems phony to me: what’s wrong with me?
• She can’t stop raving about this diet but I tried it, and it didn’t work for me: what’s wrong with me?

When you so desperately want to plug into the experiences of others, you risk unplugging from your own.

Where you are is where you are. What you feel is what you feel. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with you.

Be curious about the contrast between yourself and others. It may be there to shine a light on stuff you need to see. But don’t jump immediately into “Fix Me!” mode.

You’re not broken.

You’re just where you are, feeling what you feel. And that’s good enough.

A note about the time it takes to process your emotions:

Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the weekend’s events, I’d gone through a range of emotions. Shock, fear, sadness, anxiety.

But twenty-four hours later, I was seeing the divine blessing in all of it.

I really wasn’t enjoying working with that web developer or the quality of the work he was producing.

Once I paid the massive $3000 bill, it would mark the end of a long, miserable relationship.

After years of fantasizing about living in my own home, this painful series of events was moving me that much closer toward my dream.

Although I had experienced some anger at first, I wasn’t in that angry place anymore. So when my friend responded with anger, I doubted myself, thinking that my feelings had to match hers.

How long you take to process stuff is how long you take.

If that process unfolds faster or slower than someone else’s, you’re not any less sincere or any less awakened.

Your anger or sadness is no less real and the experience of it is no less meaningful and purposeful in your own life, if you don’t take the same amount of time to work through it as someone else does – or thinks they would.

There is no formula for how long you are required to sit with a given set of emotions. The best (and only) guidance to follow is your own intuition.

Are you glossing over some details that need to be fully acknowledged?

Are you rushing into problem-solving mode without allowing yourself to be fully present with the feelings you’re experiencing?

Only you can answer these questions. There’s no spiritual calculation to be found here.

Your process is your process. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. @annikamartins
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Love,
Annika

Annika Martins is a spiritual curator, which is kinda like being a museum curator. Except instead of curating paintings, she curates spiritual practices. From prayer and eyes open meditation to surfing and self-touch (oh yah!), pack your curiosity and prepare to expand your definition of what’s high and holy.

See the Sacred. Your way. It’s all going down at AnnikaMartins.com.

Image courtesy of Thomas Leuthard.