You've Got "Stay Strong" All Wrong
Over my tour, I met some amazing people who are pillars of strength. They emanate love and joy, and make a difference in every life they touch.
One in particular, I sat down with for a coffee. It started off a happy, bubbly conversation because this person was all confidence and strength. I sat down, relaxing into a talk about healthy habits, lifestyle coaching and the tour, her warmth making me more and more open.
We got to talking about the work that To Write Love On Her Arms does and all of a sudden, she broke down in tears. I was totally caught off guard. I thought maybe I had said something without realizing it, and I mentally began retracing my steps for anything that could have been offensive.
She apologized through sobs, and told me how she had just last week lost a family member to suicide.
My throat tightened and the wind went out of me. Her raw pain was impossible not to empathize with, especially because of the joy she had been radiating up til that point. In tears, this powerful, strong woman seemed uncomfortable, trying to smile through them and laugh them away. In her vulnerable state, she timidly looked up at me.
"I'm so sorry," she said as she dabbed at her eyes with a napkin, "I thought I could stay strong today."
I immediately reached across the table, looked in her eyes sternly and adamantly corrected her:
"Holding this pain inside is not strength. Having the courage to show it and make something positive out of it IS."
Too often, I hear the wrong interpretations of what "stay strong," means. Here's what it does NOT mean:
Suck it up.
Don't show your feelings.
Don't talk about your pain.
Staying strong isn't blocking off all emotion. Staying strong is: "I'm feeling this, and it sucks. I'm going to let myself feel it and cry and talk about it, then I'm going to move forward."
...which is actually more difficult than holding it inside.
It takes courage to talk about feeling hurt. It takes faith to let yourself feel pain, and to remind yourself even through grief that it is transitory.
Staying strong isn't about showing the world you never feel anything less than happy and confident. Staying strong is being brave enough to show them that you do, but that you move forward anyway.
In order to clear the air, I'd like to give you the elements of what I mean when I say, "Stay strong."
Staying strong is acknowledging that you're not a happy-machine.
Not one of us on earth is happy all the time. It's impossible and it would be pretty boring if we were. We'd never have that happiness to compare it to, right?
Staying strong is being with your emotions without dwelling.
It is HARD to sit with pain and struggle. The deeper you're feeling, the more it sucks.Still, in order to move forward, you must first face what it is that's keeping you from achieving those periods of happiness.Sitting in your emotions, feeling them and being in them is an act of strength. If you want an exercise for this, click here.
Staying strong is being able to talk openly about what you're feeling.
Whether it's to a therapist, your best friend, your sister, or your cat, this element is important in order to deal with problems as they come up.
Strong people do not run away from emotions or take up negative habits to escape dealing. They face their problems, acknowledge them, and talk it out so that they may move through them.
Talking about your problems can help you find their solutions. Often when I'm talking about what's bothering me, I actually end up resolving the issue as I work it out with someone who's a good listener.
This element does not mean go and talk to everybody about it. It means having the courage to talk to people who are supportive and will help you through it. Talk to people you know won't judge you. For that reason, I keep many of my talks to my therapy sessions. :)
Staying strong is pulling yourself up out of the darkness, and moving forward.
Getting up in the morning can be a struggle if you're in pain. Strength comes when you gather yourself out of that state, and choose to move on from it.
This is the most important element of staying strong. It is all too tempting to dwell in these feelings. They suck you in like a sink hole and because they're so intense, they make us feel alive. We can even get addicted to them.
The strong ones are the people who choose to pull themselves out of this hole, and move to higher ground.You can be that person. You can move to higher ground because now you know where the holes are.
Honestly, chances are you'll fall into another one one of these days, but now that you've climbed out of one, you'll be that much better and quicker at climbing out of the next ones.
Staying strong is the courage to face the fact that life isn't sunshine and rainbows all the time, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, to be wrong, to take responsibility for your life.
The truth of the matter is that we are all strong at heart. You choose to stay strong, or to let yourself be overcome by fear.Every moment is a choice to stay strong. In this moment, what do you choose?
*****I'm heading off to Portland on Wednesday for my final 30x30 Project Bootcamp, and it's bittersweet. I am so incredibly proud of myself and of what the movement has accomplished this far, but I am sad to see this year's tour come to a close.
Many people are asking what's next, and to answer you without delving into too many details, I'll just say: tons.
The most immediate of which is being released on Friday, the same day as my final bootcamp. You'll be the first to hear about it here in Friday's post. I thought it would be fitting to release something brand new while saying goodbye to the beginning of the Strong Inside Out movement.
My immediate next goal is to help you harness the movement within you.
Teaching fitness with the goal of unleashing inner strength is my calling, and it has been an adventure teaching many of you in person. With Friday's release, I hope to make these teachings more accessible for all of you who are struggling to achieve your goals, and finding that the help you need just isn't available.
Be sure to tune in to Friday's post for all the juicy details!
Stay strong,
Amy
Photo (cropped) by Luis Galvez on Unsplash