I would say I used to be a runner but it wouldn’t be accurate. Putting on my running shoes and my headphones in the early morning brought me peace. My knees can’t take the impact anymore but I still run in plenty of other ways. I’m still a runner. I run from hard conversations sometimes. I run from my feelings. I run from housework and laundry. I will avoid laundry until I literally have nothing to wear. I know, if I just throw a load in every night when I get home it won’t pile up right? But then I have to face laundry every day? Every day? I would rather avoid it as long as I can and then deal with it when I have to.
Feelings are kind of like laundry. They pile up. They take up space and use up our emotional reserves, especially when we avoid them. It’s like there’s a feelings hamper that sits inside of us. It holds all the emotional laundry that needs to be cleaned and put away. Maybe it holds feelings in it that need to be thrown out because they don’t fit anymore. If we don’t pull them out of the hamper, we might not even know they are there. They might just sit there for months or years like that really cool concert t-shirt you forgot you had because it got stuck at the bottom of your dresser drawer.
I don’t know about you but if some magical laundry fairy showed up and said “Girl, I got you. I am here to help you do your laundry. Let’s do it together.” First, I would probably check in with my significant other and question if I needed psychiatric attention? Then I would……no I wouldn’t. I still wouldn’t want to do laundry. I would probably ask if I could have my three wishes, one of which would be to have all my laundry done by someone else, ha-ha.
If we ignore our feelings, stuff them, push them to the back recesses of our minds they may seem like they are sufficiently hidden or that we have moved past them. In some cases, this works and life moves on. Other times, they tend to pop up at really inopportune moments. Moments when being emotionally triggered is really embarrassing or inconvenient. Sometimes the feelings hamper gets so full they just start to spill out and make messes in your life. They can also get heavy and weigh you down, even to a point where life just seems unmanageable, relationships seem unmanageable. Like carrying around a really heavy, big suitcase with no handle, it just doesn’t work.
Therapy is like taking the time to clean out your feelings hamper, taking inventory and having someone help you sort through it. As much as I really dislike laundry I have to admit when it’s all done it feels pretty darn good. It’s all put away and I know I don’t have to think about it for a couple weeks. What a relief! You can do this with feelings too. It’s so much easier to do when someone is there to help, when someone can give you strategies for processing, sitting with, letting go of and cleaning out that feelings hamper. Running sounds so much easier but here’s the thing. Eventually you get older, the suitcase gets heavier and your knees just can’t take the impact anymore.
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