My heart practically broke in half this morning! My ten year old daughter had an emotional breakdown on the way to school. This is the second day in a row that this has happened. Yesterday, I decided to give her a “mental health day” and we turned the car around and came home. But, when it happened again this morning, I knew I had to take a different approach.
Sitting the car, in front of the school, we had a talk about emotions. I said to her, “Sweetheart, I can see that you’re really upset. You’ve told me that there’s nothing serious going on at school and I believe you. I want to honor your feelings and let you know that they’re real and normal. But here’s the thing. You have a responsibility to go to school. And you have to do that no matter what your emotions are telling you right now. We can make a different choice about home schooling or whatnot in the long run. But, today, you have to dig deep inside yourself and find the strength to walk in that classroom and do what you need to do. You can’t let your FEELINGS determine your behavior.”
If I had only learned this lesson at the age of ten, I could have saved myself years of grief! All too often, we (and this is particularly relevant for women) have a tough time balancing between honoring our feelings and taking action on the things we need to do. We either deny that we’re having the feeling in the first place and power through, or we get overwhelmed by our feelings and do nothing.
Frankly, I’ve done both. I’ve stuffed my feelings down so deeply that I forgot they were even there. And, at other times, I’ve gotten so consumed by emotion that I let it make some really stupid choices.
I don’t for a minute imagine that my daughter will learn this lesson now. But, just as we build physical muscle using resistance, I’m hoping that she’ll build emotional muscle through challenging times. Because the fact is, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do whether you want to or not.
