This will pass. With work.

JESS

This will pass. 

I receive everything I feel with full validation and compassion.

I will do my best not to hang onto the narratives that come with these feelings. The fears around visibility and belonging and safety and attack. How it shows up as insecurity in other aspects of my life. How pervasive it can become. I will focus instead on the emotions and how they move through me.

I accept every emotion going through my eyeballs and my chest and my throat. I will not berate them or try to fight them. I will attempt as many times as I need to to unclench my jaws, my fist; to stretch my feet so that they trust the ground they walk on. I will bring myself water. I will ask myself to get up and breathe deeply or stretch or go cry if I need to. 

This will pass. But it must move through me to do so.

I will do my best to make space even if I refuse to fill that space. I sit in silence even if no thoughts meet me. If only tension or shouting or stubborn silence responds. I will make space every day so that when it speaks, I am ready and I know I am here to listen.

I make up some daily routine and hang onto it desperately when it feels like I’m slipping. Anything that works. Vitamins in the morning. The 3 M’s (which have been a lifesaver: Mindset, Mindfulness, Movement). I will take as long as I need to go through them, hours, but I will get through them and keep returning to them. I promise.

When I recognize my fear and where it comes from, I will use this opportunity to remind myself of how important it is for me to trust people. How much I value trust in friendships, relationships, career partnerships. I mourn everything I need to with that realization.

During a time where we constantly experience mistrust, harm, danger, heartache, without being able to balance that reality with love, connection, solidarity from those outside immediate reach… it can get so brutal. 

I can’t always tell when I’m moving around in a trigger state. I have only myself to check in and make space, and I promise to keep trying and making space every day.

I will do my best to…

… hold space even if I am unable, in that moment, to step into it.

… receive everything I feel with full validation and compassion. 

… create space for it to move through me, so that it will pass.

This will pass.

I promise it will pass.