“Oh, you must be SO HAPPY to go home next week!”
I cringed. Sure, I was. But I also wasn’t.
And it wasn’t that I wasn’t happy. It was the shame of feeling both joy and dread, and the (gasp) relief of quarantine so I could decompress, that threw a punch to my gut with the heartbreaking thought, “how can you be such a bad wife/mother?”
The shame bore down on me, day by day.
Then I remembered what I’d learned from Susan David’s groundbreaking book“Emotional Agility,” that I could make choices-
Either I could continue punishing myself, or I could permit myself to gently accept how I felt, kindly, bravely.
I could hide, stuff, or be swallowed by these complex mixed feelings, or I could recognize them as signposts to what I valued.
If I’m dreading going home, it doesn’t mean I’m a bad mother. It just means I’ve discovered how much I value quiet time, and my passion for work. It signposts to me how burnt out I actually was, how much I REALLY need to exercise greater self care when I head back.
It shows me that to be a better wife/mother to my loved ones, I must first love myself more.
If I feel grief, it doesn’t mean I’m weak. It tells me I value new friendships, nature, and the gift of this new experience.
Unless we show up to our difficult emotions honestly, we cannot discover our values, what matters to us. We cannot discover our weaknesses, become more resilient. We cannot become better versions of ourselves.
By bravely asking ourselves, “What is my emotion telling me about what I value?”, we gain clarity and strength to move forwards.
Today, if you’re struggling with complex emotions, take a deep breath. Write them down. Instead of jumping into labels (“I am weak,” “I am pathetic,”) would you use them to discover what you value?
Instead of judging ourselves for how we feel (“I am a bad person to feel fearful”), could we say, “my struggle with fear tells me I value security.”
And then only, shall we walk towards deeper vulnerability, deeper connection and greater resilience, together.
Sitting at the Maguga Dam in Eswatini, Africa