One of the best pieces of advice I could have ever received was to stop trying to be happy all the time.
No, really.
Throughout my last few years of high school through my first year of college, my anxiety was pretty bad. I guess it still can be, but the difference is that I’ve learned how to handle it. Back then, I had no idea how to keep a lid on it. It would literally just consume me.
In between long-term bouts of stress, I’d have happy, calmer periods. They’d lull me into this false sense of security, like, Oh, I’m fine now. Everything’s cool. Sooner or later, something would make me crash right back down. As the years went on, I grew to expect it, but it never sucked any less. I would feel so awful sinking back into the days where I felt plagued by anxiety after feeling happy. Then I’d feel guilty for my anxiety, because in my mind, nobody wanted to deal with me like this after experiencing me at my best. I especially didn’t want to deal with me. That led to me trying to repress all the bad thoughts and feelings, but that only made it worse. It’s a vicious cycle that’s incredibly hard to get out of.
One day near the end of my sophomore year, I was in my dorm room killing time between classes, and came across this vlog on YouTube. I can’t remember who it was or even what the video was called, but something made me click on it and watch. It was this guy just completely opening up; he was dealing with a personal loss, and before, he hadn’t had any clue on how to deal with it. He said that all he felt was anger and sadness and denial. The emotions came in cycles, but he couldn’t break away from any of them. Then he said something I really paid attention to — he couldn’t work through any of these feelings because he was trying to repress them.
Sound familiar?
He went on to give this advice to anyone that was watching: stop trying to push away your emotions. If you do that, they’re just going to push back even harder. Let yourself feel everything that comes at you. If you’re feeling sad, go ahead and let yourself be sad for a while. If you’re angry, feel it and work it out. Give every emotion its time with you. Trying to push back anything else but happiness will give you nothing but the opposite.
I’m certainly not immune to stress now, and I don't think I ever will be, but hearing this changed me significantly. It changed the way I deal with my own feelings. This outlook lets me get out of my own head sometimes to say, “Hey, nothing lasts forever. Not happiness, but not sadness, either.”
So the next time you feel like this, remember: the sun’s gonna come back out. Dance in the rain in the meantime.
