emotional wellbeing – Budget Bliss: Bucket List

I think it is fair, dear reader, to believe that there are many of you who have gone through trials and tribulations in this life. It is also fair to believe that there are many of you who have not made it through those trials unscathed. You may think that you are irreparably broken from the experience. I assure you, you are not. You are probably quite resilient and resourceful. However, you may not yet realize it and I do not think you are entirely to blame.

Something that frequently irritates me is the media’s depiction of healing. A character suffering from PTSD suddenly has a realization that they are able to face their fears and suddenly the flashbacks stop. A story about a girl grieving the loss of her mother goes back to being happy by writing a letter, stuffing it in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. Healing is done through a flashbulb moment, a small act or a one time therapy session with a counselor. So when we have our flashbulb moments, take those small acts and go to counseling and we still aren’t “fixed”, we begin to wonder if we will ever be healed. Because why wouldn’t we question our ability to heal when the narrative we’ve been given is that it’s quick and easy.

It’s like everything else in our society, we want a quick solution without a lot of effort. Take this shot, you’ll lose weight. Play this game for 10 minutes a day and you’ll be fluent in Spanish months! Go to counseling for a few sessions and your trauma will be cured. And you won’t ever have a set back again!

Photo by Antoni Shkraba Studio on Pexels.com

The truth is that isn’t how healing works. It’s a messy, difficult and sometimes frustrating process. It’s taking what feels like three steps forward only to fall five steps back and then have to walk three steps forward to have taken one actual step. It’s like cleaning out the refrigerator where you have to open the old tupperware knowing that you’re about to discover what might be the start of new intelligent life because you’ve allowed it to evolve for so long. No one wants to open the tupperware to see what’s inside and unlike the tupperware you don’t have the option to just throw the whole thing in the trash. You have to open it up and deal with whatever you find, no matter how unpleasant.

Emotions, unfortunately, require care and ignoring them doesn’t make them go away. Because when we turn off our ability to feel the negative emotions, we also turn off our ability to feel positive emotions. That’s why we can end up feeling emotionally numb even when the difficult times are over and we don’t understand why we can’t be happy now. No one wants to sit in the negative emotions. We often jump to problem solving or attempting to reason with them rather than simply sit and hold space for whatever may be there.

You don’t want to face it because it’s not enjoyable but the only way to the other side is through it. Not once, not twice but again and again and again. Because processing once often isn’t enough, not with more complex and complicated issues. If it were, you could just write a journal entry and be on with your life. What really sucks is when you you think you’re good only to get into a situation many years later where you’re triggered all over again. So you take deep breaths, count out 5 things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste – an excellent grounding technique. You remind yourself that you’re in the present and that what you’re responding to is in the past. It’s followed by the frustration of not being “over it”, forgetting that our emotional minds aren’t subject to logic or even the constraints of time.

If you aren’t going through something then chances are you know someone who is and it can be tempting to try and fix the problem. Remember your presence is all that is required to let them know that they aren’t alone.

If you find yourself overwhelmed in your healing journey, I recommend reaching out to your supports and consider expanding your support system as well whether that be a therapist, counselor, life coach, priest, etc.

This isn’t a post about how to heal, but rather about being kind to yourself in the process. Healing isn’t linear nor is grief. It’s a process that’s often circular, confusing and paradoxical. Which is, honestly, the human experience. In living a life well lived, taking the time to allow ourselves to feel the full spectrum instead of trying to rush through it can be one of the best things you can do because healing takes time.

Love is in the air, or at least Valentine’s Day is.

It’s the time of year when the town is painted red, couples linger a little closer, and a different kind of warmth permeates despite the bitter chill of winter. The days are growing lighter. Spring is promised. Something soft waits patiently beneath the cover of snow.

And yet, Valentine’s Day carries a strange contradiction.

Did you know it is one of the most common days for breakups?

For a holiday brimming with sappy poems, fragrant flowers, and sweet chocolate, it has earned a surprisingly bitter reputation. Perhaps that is because a day devoted to love forces us to reflect on what love actually is… and sometimes, upon closer examination, we discover that what we thought was love… wasn’t.

Believe it or not, our culture, and often even our families, do a poor job of teaching us what real, authentic love looks like.

We talk about butterflies in our stomachs and feeling lightheaded from a kiss. In love songs, boundaries blur and two people fuse into one. In stories, love is intense and consuming. The hero protects the heroine, but also possesses her, sealing devotion with the words: “You are mine.”

Sometimes we are taught to view love through obligation and duty. Love becomes something we owe. Something we earn by fulfilling expectations and playing our roles correctly. Love becomes sacrifice at the expense of the self.

But is that love?

I would argue that these versions are infatuation at best, and unhealthy, even abusive, at worst. And yet, between cultural depictions and our own internal patterns, we often confuse what love is.

We learn from our earliest experiences what love looks like. As we grow older, we don’t always seek what is healthy, we seek what is familiar.

I could list a million examples of unhealthy love. I could write out endless red flags. But the problem with red flags is that if something doesn’t match them exactly, we may dismiss what we feel.

We tell ourselves, “Well, it’s not abusive.”

And yet, something can fall short of abuse while still falling far short of love.

That is why I want to focus instead on what healthy love actually looks like.

Across poems, philosophy, research, and human experience, certain themes arise again and again. Love is more than a feeling or an attachment. Healthy love is a consistent presence, the willingness to stay, not because one must, but because one chooses to.

And while love may cost us something at times, it should never come at the cost of ourselves.

Healthy love is not self-erasure. It is not martyrdom. It is a widening sense of us that still contains a me. Sacrifice in love should not diminish either partner, but strengthen both.

To love someone is also to truly see them.

Love recognizes the beloved as they are: flawed, human, singular, worthy. Love says, “You matter. You are not interchangeable. You cannot simply be replaced.”

Love is not possession. It is not fear disguised as devotion. Nor is it the merging of two souls into one entwined being, as popular as the fated-mate trope may be.

Love does not have chains.

It is choice and freedom.

Healthy love enhances rather than restricts. It fosters growth rather than suffocation. One person is not diminished so the other can shine. Both are made better, not because they complete one another, but because they support one another.

In short, healthy love is a relationship where both people feel emotionally safe, seen as they are, and free to grow without fear of punishment, abandonment, or control.

Love says:

“I won’t disappear when you’re inconvenient.”
“I won’t punish you for being human.”
“I won’t leave you alone in your pain.”

But healthy love does not say:

“I will erase my own needs.”
“I will surrender my boundaries.”
“I will make your suffering my identity.”

Love is safety for both.

It allows both partners to exist without feeling they must earn their right to be there.

And perhaps that is the quiet challenge of Valentine’s Day, beneath all the roses and romance. Love is not something waiting for us in some distant future, once we are finally healed, finally perfect, finally enough. It is something we practice in the present, in the relationships we choose, in the boundaries we hold, in the way we refuse to mistake survival for devotion. A life well lived is not built “someday.” It is built here, now, in the steady courage to believe that love can be both real and safe, and that we are worthy of it exactly where we are.

Tag: emotional wellbeing

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