It's not been a bad day. It's been a high stress/low energy kind of day, but not terrible. I've for the most part been able to keep myself distracted so that I don't harp on my issues too much. My therapist tells me that all the time, I never take a break from my issues. It's constantly running through my head and I never can seem to shut it off. It takes a real skill for me to do that, but I'm getting better. I've come to realize the importance of escaping it. It may sound unhealthy at first -- but when you relive day to day to day the same negative emotions, thoughts, feelings, scenarios it really wears you down and it leaves you exhausted.. to find a release, an escape from that for awhile, is necessary.

I never was a believer in the whole "You control how you feel" thing. You don't control how you feel. There are way too many factors that go into an emotion, it's depth, intensity, nuance, form of expression, etc. You DON'T control how you feel -- you control how you respond. That's why it's highly insensitive to not acknowledge how someone feels. It's not a choice -- no one chooses to feel negative emotions. In that same breath, let me tell you also I don't believe you can "change your emotions" in the sense that many people try to throw that around. Fleeting emotions are easy to let go. You don't change how you feel, you just change your focus. However the human psyche is much more complex than that. Over time enduring emotions can change, maybe you grow to love/fall out of love with someone. Maybe you learn to despise something, or hate this, or that. Those things develop and change with time, and won't change on a whim. Most emotions are deeply seated into experience that have lasting impacts. To assume that someone should "just get over it" rejects the idea that person has emotions that are deeper and more intense than what can be experienced from one moment to another.

That doesn't mean there aren't healthy ways to deal with emotions. There are. I don't choose to be neurotic and obsesses and fixate and overthink, I can't really control that happens. I can, however, make the decision to alleviate that in some way. For me, that's an escape into a video game, a walk, a book, a TV show.. something. It helps.

So my lesson of the day from some reflective thought is this: I'm not doing any service to anyone, especially not myself, to pretend I don't feel a certain way or that I that it doesn't bother me. I can't change the fact it has influence and affects me. There is no "just get over it", there is "just deal with it". I personally like that idea. Address your emotions, figure out what is the issue, why you feel the way you do -- take action to help remedy the negative emotion, and if nothing more can be done, try to divert your time and energy. Done deal.

So, insightful day for me.