Embrace The Suck
For many who live in the midwest, late January through February each year can feel like an emotional black hole where all light is consumed and time reduces to a crawl. It’s as if even God himself couldn’t stand the idea of February being any longer, so he made it only 28 days. (Except this year, we get ANOTHER day in February. How bizarre that we can just add and take away days on a calendar.)
If it is harder to feel mentally balanced in this season, I want to remind you that this season will pass. It will not last forever. When days get really hard, take this quote from Seneca to heart:
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” - Seneca
Endurance athletes and Special Forces types are famous for the mentality: Embrace The Suck. These high performers have changed their relationship with discomfort. They do not see hardship, suffering, fear, and/or doubt as something to be avoided. These things are simply evidence that you are at the end of yourself. Good. Now the work begins. It will be hard, it will be uncertain, you might fall, but this is how you improve.
It’s not that high performers somehow don’t feel sluggish, weak, fearful, or don’t have intrusive thoughts that say things like sleep in, take the day off, just quit, you’ll never do it, etc., it’s that they have learned that these things are just part of the deal. You feel like crap AND you get up. You have thoughts of doubt AND you keep going. You feel afraid AND you lean into that fear.
AND is a powerful little conjunction.
When it’s dark most of the day, when it’s cold and dreary, when you feel a lack of purpose, when you find yourself slipping from all of those well intended resolutions, when your mind and body seem to be against you … remember AND.
Waiting for everything to be just right before you act doesn’t work. Don’t just wait for difficulty to pass. Embrace the suck. Feel crappy AND go to the gym. Feel disconnected from your partner AND schedule a date night. Feel self-doubt AND put yourself out there. AND allows you to get moving and take responsibility for yourself, regardless of what you’re feeling.
Days will get warmer, the sun will stay out longer, March will arrive and usher us toward spring. In the meantime, if you’re having a hard time, allow yourself to have a hard time, but don’t avoid doing what you need to do. Have a hard time AND get to work on what matters to you.
You can do this!
Happy to be in your corner,
Tom Page, LCPC
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