Thoughtful Thursday & Emotional Rocks
ON THE BLOG
EMOTIONAL ROCKS
Hello friends!
Years ago, my family and I were on a backpacking trip.
As I have mentioned before, my husband and I have 3 sons and 2 daughters.
On this particular trip, my older 4 children were with us and my youngest daughter was staying with my parents because she was too little to come with us.
My husband and I, and my two older boys carried most of the gear while the younger two, my 8 year old daughter and 5 year old boy, had small packs with mostly just their clothes in them.
We had a fun trip camping, hiking, and fishing.
When it was time to leave, we packed our bags and began hiking back to the car.
We hadn’t gone very far on our journey when my 8 year old daughter started complaining about how heavy her backpack was.
She kept stopping to rest.
We were feeling frustrated and it seemed weird because, like I mentioned in the beginning, the only thing she would have in her back was her clothes.
After this went on for a little while, we stopped and took her pack from her.
We couldn’t believe how heavy it was.
I remember unzipping the pack and looking inside.
To my surprise, there was a bunch of rocks.
No wonder it was so heavy.
Asking her why she was carrying all these rocks, she told us that she wanted to take them home because they were pretty.
Needless to say, we left most of the rocks behind.
Sometimes we do this with our emotions.
We don’t deal with our emotions and we shove them in our backpack.
Our pack becomes heavier and heavier.
We just carry our emotional rocks around and suffer.
Reacting to an emotion and compounding it by freaking out.
Pushing against an emotion.
Avoiding it.
Dramatizing it.
All this does is add rocks to our packs and creates suffering.
The truth is, suffering is totally optional.
Pain is part of being human but suffering doesn’t have to be.
When we can learn to not be afraid of our emotions and actually embrace them, we can grow and actually thrive.
We can become emotionally mature and resilient by taking the emotional rocks out of our packs.
Holding them.
Acknowledging them.
Allowing them and then setting them down.
I invite you to listen to this week’s episode to learn more.
Have a joyful week!
