It's instinct, to shut down when things seem to hard. That maybe if you don't have to feel those hard-hitting feelings. It's instinct.

But it will get to the point where you stop feeling, even in the moments that should be joyous and pure. You will begin to put a facade up and wonder what it really means to feel. Plus, it's not healthy to bottle everything thing up, I'm sure you have heard this more than once, but it's the truth.

Feeling is what let's know that you are alive. What allows you to really take in an experience the way it was meant to be experienced. So stop running and hold your ground, you are strong enough.

You're probably thinking to yourself,

"I just want to be strong. Be the person I need to be for others."

And sure, it's true that we often seek a shoulder to cry on but that doesn't mean that you need to sacrifice your own well being to do so. It's okay to stop fighting your natural reaction to things and forget what society says about how you should react in a certain situation. I know that I have fallen victim to this way more than I should recently and I had no idea what I was doing at the time.

It was easy at first to take my emotions and brush them under the rug as if they did not exist, almost too easy. Was I just doing it because it was the easiest route to take? Was I trying to be a person that I really wasn't? The answer to both of those questions is, yes. I wasn't being honest with myself because I had got into this habitual habit of turning off all the unwanted emotions just because I knew that it could slow me down.

What I didn't know at the time was that some situations may slow me down by feeling but those emotions could remind me that I was alive. That I was meant to be adventurous and learn from my mistakes by allowing myself some freedom.

Stop turning those feelings off.

Be present and not stuck on a train that is going to the future without looking back or slowing down.

We are meant to slow down and enjoy the moment and whatever wave of emotions that we are meant to feel. Look around and smell those damn flowers because you deserve to.