It's Okay to Not Be Okay

When I started working as a therapist 10+ years ago, the psychologist I worked under had a separate back entrance for her clients to exit after sessions.

I asked her about this one day, and her response was that people don’t want to be seen coming in or out of a counseling office....so some had asked for a separate exit to avoid uncomfortable encounters.

Emotional bypassing is real, and is something that needs to be acknowledged and seen—so that we can heal our collective shame around experiencing difficult emotions and receiving help.

Because of our own sensitivity to dealing with our own difficult emotions, we end up having even less tolerance for others who are experiencing hard things. And if you work in the helping professions, you know there is so much shame around “not being ok” and being afraid of burdening others with our melancholy, depression, anxiety, or other sensitive emotions.

We need to normalize that it’s ok to not be ok.

It has helped to identify emotions as energy moving through us—coming up and out, passing by our ego mind, which then spins stories. But it’s all just energy moving through us.

Let’s practice sharing our burdens, not hiding our pain, and holding space for others experiencing them, so we can digest this collective trauma together.

Together, we can go farther.