For When Everything Is Burning

by Scott Eilers

When you invalidate your emotional reactions to a situation, you’re essentially trying to command your feelings to disappear. To skip the part where you have to feel them and move right to the part where you feel “normal” again.

We would never expect these things of another person. That they sacrifice themselves every day, treat themselves like an absolute nothing. By asking ourselves to do what we would never ask another to do, we mark ourselves as different. We isolate ourselves from humanity, and we exacerbate and exaggerate the inherent loneliness and isolation we already feel. Forcing ourselves to play by different rules than everybody else makes us feel like aliens on a hostile planet. The only reason you feel inferior to others is that you’re acutely aware of your every flaw, every failure, and every misstep. This makes you seem more damaged, more broken, and more worthless than other people because you don’t have this level of access to them.

Remember This: When you catch yourself shaming, blaming, or judging yourself to an unreasonable degree, respond to the lie with a statement like: “I’m still working through the effects of events I didn’t choose to experience.”