I took this video of the Carrowbeg river in Westport town centre yesterday and it made me smile while filming because we were experiencing 4 seasons in one hour.

Personally, I’m still beaming in hail storms, so happy to live here now. But that doesn’t mean that life is all sunshine and rainbows.

I actually love the wildness of the weather and the landscape.

And just as storms can ultimately wreak beauty on a landscape, it doesn’t necessarily help to think of stunning scenery when worried about or dealing with power cuts, floods and other storm related havoc.

Similarly, when we’re in emotional turmoil – I call them my Churny McChurnface moments as reminding myself that there’s much to life than those moments (minutes, hours, days and so on) helps – telling ourselves that:

a) we shouldn’t be feeling like this

b) we’re so lucky, others have so much worse to contend with

c) that we’ll look back and be grateful for this storm for strengthening our roots

etc etc etc SOUNDS reasonable but isn’t very empathic WHEN WE’RE IN EMOTIONAL PAIN AND STRUGGLING.

If we allow ourselves to feel all the feelings, we can connect more quickly with the lessons in whatever we’re going through.

Mindfulness can really help but, again, we need to be kind to ourselves and go with a minute if that’s enough rather than trying to force ourselves to endure more.

Talking to a trusted loved one (or a therapist) can help.

Sometimes, even articulating our feelings can feel too much so we might journal (giving ourselves permission to make no sense, to express rather than edit our feelings) to get them out that way.

Or we might SCREAM.

Into a pillow if there are no other options. Or underwater. Or if you are sure enough that they won’t alarm others, outside!

Stamping feet, kickboxing, a stompy walk (personally, I love swimming but in a stompy way, getting it all out of my arms and legs, quickly laughing at myself and running out of energy so coming back to a more civilised swim)…

And, of course, there’s tapping and yoga but in today’s blog, am celebrating the sillier things we can do.

The things that honour how grrrrr we might be feeling and help us harvest those feelings rather than repressing them.

What helps you?

Feel free to email me if you’d like to – eve@selfcarecoaching.net

With love,