What positive emotion do you feel most often?
Gratitude is the positive emotion I feel most often. I work in a tough field which exposes me to all sorts of difficult things. For as long as I can remember I’ve ALWAYS had a heart that caused me to care deeply for others. In doing so, I found myself experiencing a significant degree of sadness for the hard things I saw that my fellow human beings were experiencing. I carried as much of the emotional burden as I could until I couldn’t carry it anymore.
What did I do when I couldn’t carry it anymore? A lot of things actually. In my earlier unhealthier days I often tried to fix whatever the situation was which meant that I assumed a lot of responsibility that wasn’t mine. Sound familiar? We’re NOT alone. I’d also find myself experiencing emotional overload and as a result managing my emotions poorly. While it didn’t seem like it impacted me that much- it did. Why? It impacted me because I was so sensitive to what others were experiencing without any insight.
Insight, growth, maturity, and emotional awareness caused me to learn how to safely offload the emotions and stress I picked up from others. The one that made the biggest difference: gratitude. It’s INCREDIBLY difficult to stay in a sad place with gratitude.
I’m think it’s difficult to stay in both places simultaneously for an extended period of time because one is light and the other is dark. I work daily to implement the practice of gratitude into my activities so that I can shine light into the areas of darkness I’m often exposed to thorough work. This leads to others seeing the hope that lives in me and maybe helps them believe it’s possible for them too.
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