How to stay strong through the "ughness"

How do you stay strong when everything seems to be falling apart? When bit by bit your power seems to be stripped from you and your emotions are all over the place?

I think the answer to this question depends on how you define internal strength… similarly to how the way you perceive your success is dependent upon your definition of what success means to you.

We are conditioned to think that being strong is some sort of mask you have to put on - ignoring your own wants and needs in order to keep grinding through the shit.

It’s a very all-or-nothing definition, a constant game of comparison.

Here are two common real-life examples:

Your mom says to you, “You need to be strong for your brother/sister right now.” - aka they are the one who needs emotional support so you just have to suck it up in order to be there for them.

During a job interview, someone asks you, “Is this a strength or weakness of yours?” - aka our society, especially in the corporate world, does not like in-betweens. You’re either good with numbers or you’re not. You either see yourself as good with technology or you put yourself in the category of technologically challenged.

The interesting component of this example above is that in order to escape being perceived as incapable or unworthy, we somehow find a way to talk about our weaknesses as strengths. As though we only have value and potential if we are already perfect in every aspect of life.

You get to shift your definition of strength.

What would this look like? Start by recognizing that you get to be strong for others AND be strong for yourself. Connecting with your strength is about connecting with your personal power from within. In order to connect with your true, most authentic inner self, you must be willing to connect with ALL of you.

This creates fear.

Fear that tapping into your emotions will open up the floodgates, and once you’re there it’ll feel almost impossible to get back to that state of resilience that you were striving so hard to stay in.

Society deems us strong if we are able to just push through the pain. As though your sadness or grief or anger or anxiety will somehow magically dissipate as time goes on if you just keep on ignoring the pain.

But ignoring those inner emotions, ignoring certain parts of you, does not make you strong. It might make you “appear” strong to others in that moment or help you feel better by focusing on anything other than what’s really going on. But slowly, internally, you begin to enter a weaker and weaker state. A place of vulnerability and loneliness and fear… the exact state that you were trying so hard to prevent getting to by denying any unsettling emotions and putting on a brave face all the time.

At the end of the day, this denial isn’t serving you or those around you.

To me, strength means connecting with ALL parts of you. All of your emotions, all of your desires, every little bit of who you are. It’s about exploring and creating a relationship with these more vulnerable parts of you… acknowledging them rather than shutting them out. Getting to a point where you trust that every emotion serves a purpose, while also knowing that you get to make the empowered choice to not let them lurk around forever and take over your existence.

If you’ve ever had a good, cathartic cry, you know what I’m talking about. That overwhelmingly, beautiful sense of release after crying out of sadness/anger/frustration. At first, it may seem that crying will only intensify the exact undesired emotion that you are trying to move past, dragging you down deeper into the hole.

But in fact, it does the opposite.

We usually feel 1,000x better after a good cry. This is because allowing yourself to dive deeper into your emotional state - confronting it - and allowing yourself to truly engage with your feelings, is exactly what your body, mind, and soul need in order to release that vibrational energy. The key here is that in order to release something, you first need to find it and acknowledge its existence. And once you’ve cleared out all the emotional clutter, that’s when you’re able to shift into a state of stability, personal power, and ease.

Rather than resent your “not so positive” emotions, we get to have gratitude for them. Feel me out on this one… Obviously, it’s not super enjoyable to be in a state of sadness/frustration. But when that arises, you get to view it as a sign of your internal strength. It’s a part of the strength process.

That emotion you’re feeling is your body’s way of telling you something is off, that something needs attention in order to move on and thrive.

There is a vibrational frequency to that emotion that is waiting to be released, and it is in regularly attending to this, rather than ignoring it, that we are able to be strong - both for ourselves and others.

So the next time someone tells you to “stay strong,” you get to say back to them, “Thank you. I’m continuing to tap into my strength by feeling the feels and connecting with my truest self without judgment. I am honoring what comes up for me and continuing to nourish my mind, body, and soul in ways that allow me to best show up for myself and others without reaching a state of depletion.” Yes, they might give you an odd look if you say all of that to them verbatim, but hey, who cares! You’re in a state of strength and freedom now, and who knows… you might just end up influencing that person to shift their definition of strength too.

Love you guys with all my heart.

xo, em