There are some days where I just don’t feel my best. Usually there is no particular reason for it. I simply woke up on the wrong side of the bed, as some say. When this happens, we love to point a finger and blame someone or something, but really it is just the way of life. There are ups and there are downs. What is important is how we flow with this wave.

Instead of trying to fight, run from, or hide these lows, what if we instead just sat with it? If we ride the lows and accept them as a perfect balance to our lives, maybe they won’t feel so low after all.

I read an article titled, The Best Way to Get Out of a Funk from Elephant Journal, and it really resonated with me. The author said, “The trick to getting out of a funk is to allow ourselves to fully feel it.” Yes!

Far too often when I am feeling down, I try to fight it. No one likes feeling like they’ve reached a low point, feeling high is so much better! I use all my energy to fight this way of feeling. I try to fix it, point a finger at someone or something to blame for it. Sometimes I try to force myself to feeling good. My ego wants all pleasure and no pain, but that is simply unreasonable.

The truth is, we are not meant to always feel happy. We are not always meant to feel like we are on top of the world. There will be times we are feeling like we’re in a funk, at a low point, and that is alright! In fact, I’d argue that is absolutely healthy and normal. Society is taught to strive for only the positive without the negative, but we cannot have one without the other.

One cannot feel pain without pleasure, happiness without sadness, a high without a low. We need the full wave of feeling. That is human. That is life. I say it is time we embrace that ride.

I believe it starts with just sitting with our selves, and feeling all the emotions to their fullest; good and bad ones alike. Not judging them, or trying to change them. Not running from them or hiding or trying to mask it in some way, but fully feeling the emotions. Maybe once we feel it, it will dissolve naturally. The more we fight, the more it will persist until we have learned that lesson.

It’s not always easy, and will definitely take practice. But perhaps the more we practice sitting with all of our emotions, the more we allow this wave to flow through us naturally without fighting it, the better we will be in the end.

And what a beautiful thing that would be.