hello there my beautiful lovely internet friends welcome back to my channel i am footless joke because i'm missing a foot we're going to use this little chicken here as an oven rest so i can get comfy and cozy as i share some wisdom with you so when people see that i'm an amputee they come to the logical conclusion that i must have seen some [ __ ] you know in my life this is a significant thing to go through and i will often get asked the question how do you go through difficult life change like how did you stay positive how did you make it through something that is so life-changing what piece of advice or wisdom do i have to share with them and i would like to reveal my secrets here today my lovely friends and i feel like my views on this are very counter cultural so let me know if you agree or disagree in the comment section down below either way is fine so in my short 31 years on the planet so far i have indeed experienced some really difficult painful times in my life i've gone through a good deal of trauma losing two houses to house fires losing my leg going through god knows how many surgeries at this point and most recently in the last six months i have gone through a divorce in the last year i have lost three dogs very unexpectedly which is still very hard to deal with i've lost friendships i had to move my leg has gotten a lot worse there's nothing that they can really do to fix it right now i have been deeply not okay most of this year and i've been forced to kind of dig deep for what the hell is going to keep me going on any given day because it's gotten dark sometimes and so often when we express to people that we are struggling with a life change a loss grief whatever it might be the responses are like you know just keep going you've got this or like you know just be grateful for what you still do have focus on those things focus on the positives my personal arch-nemesis it could be worse if i could personally burn that phrase at the stake i would other people have a worse look on the bright side you know what i'm talking about and i have found that when i am in the midst of barely holding on those things don't do anything for me there is only ever been one thing that has actually helped me and that is accepting the fact that it is going to suck it is gonna hurt it is gonna take everything that you have and expecting it to be anything other than that causes so much pain and takes so much energy i come from a background of evangelical christianity which is really big into kind of positive thinking and spinning things in a positive direction i also come from being someone who used to really be into positive thinking and being happy all the time which was very very very toxic for me and i think a lot of people and when i started actually bumping into difficult things in life i felt like i was doing it all wrong because like other people looked like they were fine when their house burnt down and i was like sad i was having a hard time with that so what was wrong with me what was broken with me why was i struggling and how do i fix that right i'm hurting that doesn't feel right how do i make myself happy or better in this moment i'm gonna use a foot pun here but i really shot myself in the foot with that way of thinking because i channeled so much i don't even wanna say self-hatred but just like self-dislike and shame and judgment onto myself for not being able to go through things in a way that was pretty to other people and i worked so hard to do it the right way to make it look right to feel the right things whatever those right things were i remember asking myself in so many situations you know what should i feel here rather than what do i feel here and this year as pretty much everything i knew about my life and relied on has been stripped away and changed i realized quite instinctually that i did not have enough left in me to try to do it the right way to try to look good through it to try to force emotion or ask what i should be feeling because i was so overwhelmed and after you know years of therapy kind of leading me to the point of understanding that it's okay to have emotions and it's human it's normal and it's okay i remember i had a phone call one night with a friend and i was in tears because i had just lost some pretty significant relationships in my life due to kind of you know ending the marriage that i had and i was really afraid that another one of my friends was also gonna decide that they couldn't be a part of my life and i was telling my friend that can't happen i cannot lose anything more you don't understand like i can't do it and he stopped me and he looked at me you know because we were over facetime and said joe this is gonna hurt and it's gonna hurt for a while and there is so much of this that you cannot control don't try don't waste your energy it is going to suck and there is nothing you can really do to get out of that and that really stopped me in my tracks because i had been working so hard to like go through the whole divorce process the right way and that kind of pierced through so much of what i was thinking and feeling at the time and it has been something that i've held on to closely for months i think on the surface saying it is going to suck it is going to hurt doesn't sound like an encouraging statement like if i got up on a stage for a motivational speech it was like hey guys it's gonna suck you're welcome thank you very much i probably wouldn't get paid right but i think it's one of the truest things that i have come to know about going through really awful things we don't like pain we don't like suffering we don't like discomfort it is our natural inclination to find a way out of that and if you're anything like me it's also your natural inclination to write off emotions that are uncomfortable that you don't like like rage or anger hatred grief shame all of that or think that you're wrong for having such a hard time you're not there are moments and things that happen in our lives that will take everything we have that will take every piece of coping and dealing with life we've learned up to that point that will shatter everything we know and there is no way that that is not gonna rip you apart i have wasted so much energy in my lifetime trying to force my feelings myself or life around me into a certain mold because i feel like that's what it should look like that's what's acceptable to other people and i also don't like being in pain and so i'm working so hard to push that off and to shove things into boxes and make it look good make it feel okay and in the moments that i've stopped doing that and just allowed myself to acknowledge the depth of hurt that i am in the emotional agony of it and removed judgment from that stopped thinking of that as like a bad thing i needed to fix but rather a consequence of living in the human world that we do and understanding that it's not always gonna be okay that some days there really isn't a way to be okay and that even more than that that is not required or even the best option the more i live the more i am convinced that falling the [ __ ] apart is kind of necessary sometimes i think the root of a lot of suffering that i have personally experienced has come from trying to be positive and trying to put a bright and shiny spin on things that are awful like i've said more than once in this video i have gone through a handful of very difficult things in my life and one thing that i have never actually done is allow myself to feel the pain in whatever ways i could and fall the [ __ ] apart and i've realized over time how detrimental that has been to me because i have used so much emotional and physical resources to try to like keep it together because we're supposed to keep it together right are we are we really over the past six months i just want to come out and like say that i really have not handled things well i have never intentionally hurt someone i have not shot myself in the foot did i already use that pun in this video i think i did i've not shot myself in the foot financially i have fulfilled necessary obligations outside of that i've kind of been a trash person in that i have been unreliable as hard as i've tried to be reliable because i just can't like i have been doing the bare minimum to exist and i have had moments where i have completely fallen apart because i just couldn't do it anymore and you know what those moments have allowed me to actually start to move forward like as a for instance i am dealing with a lot of reduced mobility right now getting around has become exponentially more painful and difficult in the last like month or so due to issues that are going on with my leg if i do the thing that i always used to do and go you know what it's frustrating yes but it's gonna be fine i'm gonna be fine i don't need to be upset about this because i can still do some things so on and so forth instead of wow that sucks this sucks it hurts i am genuinely upset about that i feel powerless and angry and it hurts like emotionally and mentally and especially physically and just acknowledge the fact that i am hurting over that that i am not super okay about that not only does that allow me to actually process that emotion and move through it but also i spent so much energy again before trying to like sculpt and mold what i was feeling and that's just entirely unnecessary feel what you're gonna feel sometimes it's not good and that's okay and if i come to peace with the fact that that is just how life is sometimes god i do so much better i feel human and it has been a huge breath of fresh air to allow myself to feel the pain and realize that it is natural and normal and i cannot fix it it's just gonna hurt until it doesn't i'll take steps to work through it to make sure that i am in a healthy place you know mentally emotionally physically all of that even as i am in the midst of falling apart i'm realizing that i'm actually starting to feel connected to who i am again and i feel like it's worth mentioning of course this ebbs and flows i feel like this is something i'll always kind of struggle with but like what should i feel versus just feeling things versus letting them hurt when they're hurting i also think it's very much worth noting that when i say like it's gonna suck it's gonna hurt contained within that is also the fact that you're probably gonna need support in those moments so please seek that please find that i certainly have needed quite a bit of help and support in the last few months which i have actually started learning how to really reach out for and doing it i really wish someone would have told me years ago and maybe they did they probably did and i just didn't hear them that when your life breaks or you break or you lose something dear to you don't try to make it not hurt just accept the reality that it is going to rip your heart open and there will be a way to sew that back up you will not always feel this way i promise you but in the moments that it hurts and sucks just let it be accept yourself you're human it's okay you're okay and that's something i still remind myself of quite often because i feel like it kind of goes against a lot of the messages we get in culture so there's your super uh motivational piece of advice today it is going to suck i kind of want to put that on a t-shirt but that would probably not be good for a variety of reasons if you made it this far in the video or honestly watched any part of it thank you i really appreciate you being here and hearing me out like i said i'm really interested to hear what you think about this what your reaction to it is does it feel like it's authentic or real to you or do you think that this is just terrible advice and i should not give it to people i would love to hear your feedback and leave me your top tip for going through difficult things because i'd love to learn something from you a huge thank you to all of my patrons over on patreon your continued generous support is the reason these videos get made and i truly appreciate it and to you lovely human watching this video right now thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today you could be anywhere else in the world doing literally anything else and you chose to listen and hang out with me for a few minutes and i really appreciate that i love you guys i'm thinking about you and i will see you in the next video bye guys should i just like wave with my leg and not do this anymore because i feel like that's that's a unique skill that i have it also weirds people out so it's like a win-win [Music]
Recent Comments