Don’t Be a Well-Being Bully
2019 was a rough year for me. The only thing more unbalanced than my mental health was my diet. I had such high hopes for 2020—I even made a resolution to be immerse myself in better, more positive thinking habits. All of that came to a screeching halt last week as I watched our troops deploying and rockets flying over al-Asad and a well-being bully stepped up.
The “friendly” meme drop came just as I had begun to calm down from the initial here-we-go-again panic. The fuzzy-greenish haze of worry began to slowly sharpen into a red-hot fury of rage. Did my non-military friend really just send me a meme reminding me to “think good thoughts?”
You have got to be kidding me right now.
Your social media account is probably flooded with memes that remind you that “attitude is a choice,” or “instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create,” or the classic, cringe-worthy “it’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.”
Self-help advocates swear by the power of positive thinking and self-affirming statements but fail to account for the power of external conditions. And as much I would like to “positive think” Iran, President Trump, and quite frankly most of the world away at this point—I can’t change what’s happening.
It’s real and it’s awful and it’s scary.
What I can do is grant myself the emotional forgiveness to be upset, worry, feel anxious, and be cranky. I can give myself permission to sit in the what-if-all-the-bad-things-
I owe it to no one to “think good thoughts” on their behalf.
And guess what? For an (un)limited time, I’m extending this offer to you, too!
It’s a funny thing I’ve discovered, but the more I’ve allowed myself to sink into my emotions (yes, even the uncomfortable ones), the more tolerant I’ve become of other people’s emotions. Pull up a chair, and stay awhile—it might get ugly, but I have your back and I have enough emotional space to share your burdens.
Difficult emotions are, well, difficult. It isn’t easy to experience them first- or second-hand.
I’ve been blessed with many good friends in my life, but the best ones allowed me to process real emotions in real time, even if it made them feel uncomfortable.
And that’s the rub, isn’t it?
Sometimes it isn’t lack of empathy that prevents us from extending the full scope of emotional support to a friend, sometimes—well, sometimes—it’s that the details at the root of the problem are just too real, too awful, too scary. It’s easier to send them a meme with a cartoon picture of a sunflower that says “don’t worry, be happy.”
I could have spent the rest of night rightfully annoyed at my blissfully ignorant civilian friend. I didn’t. Instead I messaged a friend who spent the last two days in a post-rapid-deployment tail spin and offered my genuine sans-meme support.
