Long Days Teach Powerful Lessons

by Ryan Biddulph

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Today was one of my longer days in recent memory.

I have good moments and bad moments. Usually the good moments last for most of the day. Rough moments seem fleeting. But today was different. Rather than bore you with the details, let's just say I had a number of very painful, stressful experiences that seem to be hitting me rapid fire.

The culmination was giving up two of my cats this evening. Me and my wife are moving in about a week. We are traveling bloggers. Full-time digital nomads. We cannot take the cats with us.

I feel grateful to have found a loving home for the kitties. But knowing they are out of the house for good makes me feel quite sad. Plus we had to chase one of the cats around for 20 minutes to catch her. We stressed her out. I felt horrible. I cried hard for a good 5 minutes. I felt better after that.

But I still feel quite depressed because today was a long, energy-sapping day.

Never Get It Twisted

I am human. I sometimes feel sad that my mom has been in hospice for almost five years. I feel sad that she has suffered through a terminal illness for eight years. I feel a bit depressed that my mother-in-law died two months ago, and my uncle died three months ago. I feel bad that the cats will never be in the house again. Molly and Isa bid us goodbye. My 12 year good friend Delilah leaves us next.

Factoring the heavy workload with the move and stresses consistent with this process, I am human and feel very human today. Never get it twisted.

Just because I spent hours managing my energy through meditating, doing Kriya yoga, yin yoga and power walking does not mean I am enlightened or happy 99.9% of the time. True, I am happy most of the time. But I cry. I feel upset. I feel depressed. I even have long, sad, stressful days.

Long Days Teach Precious Lessons

I learned a great deal about myself today. I learned about my fears. I learned about my judgments. I learned about emotions triggered through stressful situations. I do feel grateful to have observed almost all of my fears versus reacting to the energies or resisting the energies.

I had a few opportunities to snap at someone or some people who overreacted to me. I took a deep breath, watched my reaction in mind and calmed myself to prevent a blow up.

The downside is processing the fear, pain and grief organically, without projecting these energies, feels miserable. But in the same light, processing my fears organically feels calming and relaxing in some ways to.

Nothing feels better than allowing fear and pain to arise and exit your being without liquor, drugs, food or any physical stimulant. Today felt horrible most of the time. But I see why I had to face, feel and release the deep fear and pain associated with loss.

Stick Around

The most difficult days teach you powerful lessons because rough days trigger fears for you to face, embrace and release in order to become a serene person. People genuinely think I smile 100% of the time. No way.

But I do remain largely calm, confident and relaxed because I learn from my emotions on days like today versus resisting my fear, burying my pain and trying to distract myself with drugs, alcohol, streaming videos or food.

During the roughest days just stick around. Be renewed by the emotional lessons you learn from long, tough days.