When I withdraw to my room, I often feel like they (my family, friends, whomever) want me to come out. So, I sit there and I think, “How long can I stay here?” The longer I stay here, the less time I have to be somewhere else. It’s a safe place and a sad place, but also a happy place. Go figure. Usually if I’m not withdrawn to my room, it’s because I feel guilty about the very idea of being withdrawn.

People have asked me what I think about when I’m alone. I think about people. I think about projects I’m working on or projects I want to start (one at a time please). I think about the world and all the sadness in it and how I could possibly make a grand-scale, positive impact. It feels overwhelming, but honestly I see myself making a major impact and I even have a pretty good idea of how. I just don’t know if I can. It’s not something I wish to share, but it’s on my mind. Perhaps it’s even in motion already. Who knows.

I need to meditate more. I need to pray more. When I’m alone, I need to stop thinking. My mind rarely stops thinking though. Trying to make a busy mind stop thinking is like that scene in one of the Spider-Man movies when he’s trying to stop that train and his suit literally starts ripping at the seams. The thoughts are the train and Spider-Man’s suit is my mind. It all just starts ripping apart.

Sometimes, withdrawal is just a way to deal with anxiety. It involves finding a quiet place where I can just breathe for a moment. I’ll just sit there or lie down until the feeling of nausea goes away. In those moments, there isn’t as much productive or creative thinking going on as much as there is just fear. Fear that everything will spiral out of this tightly wound knot that I carry with me and inside me everyday. That’s the fear. That’s one of my fears.

Quiet places are nice. Having no distractions is beautiful. Being able to take five minutes to do something that I need or want to do is wonderful. So while my people probably see this withdrawal as some sort of black hole, I just see it as a moment in time where I get my energy back, so I can be the person I need to be for those who need me to be that person.

“Where did the years go?”, I constantly ask myself.

I feel like yesterday I was in college. For some reason college feels like yesterday and high school feels like a lifetime ago. I’m not sure why it feels that way, but it’s undeniable.

I can’t figure out time. It’s too complex, too stubborn, and beyond our reach. The whole Butterfly Effect is interesting, but any story that has ever attempted time travel has failed, although I could watch Back to the Future again and again. I think we long for time travel with the reason being, so we can change decisions in our past that didn’t go the way we would have hoped. I’m saying most people, if not everyone, feels this way whether they admit it or not.

So, back to my original question of, “Where did the years go?” Well, you could say they were just lost, e.g. someone’s mind was focused elsewhere. Maybe time ate the years. *shrug* Time never stops, so surely it’s hungry. I don’t really know.

I can’t figure out time. It’s too complex, too stubborn, and beyond our reach.

I’ve time traveled in my dreams before. It was extremely cold and eerie and I woke feeling very insecure and exhausted. If we ever achieve time travel, it’s probably going to be mentally exhausting if not fatal. It’s just fiction at this point, but thinking deeply about it exercises our minds.

Anyway, you can actually slow time down by focusing more on the here and now, which can be difficult for many of us (myself included), but it’s important nonetheless.

Seriously though, get off the phones and pay attention to your kids and/or your spouse. That’s what we’re constantly reminded of anyway, right? That’s what I’m reminded of. When my mind wanders, the time seems to magically disappear and I come back to the present feeling a bit regretful that I wasn’t here when I should have been. You may not work that way. We are all different. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about though.

Anyway, practice being there mentally. You won’t notice the years pass, but you might notice the hours in a more memorable way.

Emotional pain. Sadness.

For me, things are different now. I’m starting to understand these things (emotional pain and sadness) better, at least how I feel them, but it can still be utterly confusing at times. I constantly see people take on pain and immediately withdraw, often for extended periods.

I do this same thing, but perhaps with different motivation. As I feel this emotional pain slip away from me, it’s all I can do to grasp it, to hold on to it. I don’t want it to leave. It’s become a sibling for me. It’s become my spark and even motivates me at times. That’s why it’s different for me. I’m comfortable with it. It’s like Nitrous oxide to my creativity. It allows me to open the door to my soul and share freely.

I’ve written before, in an earlier blog post, that I’d always be sad. For me sadness is part of me, part of my personality. Emotional pain is not sadness for me. They are two different things and they are mutually exclusive. What people fail to understand is that I’m sad and joyful at the same time. These things actively and constantly coexist within me. And please, do not confuse sadness with depression. Depression is a clinical diagnosis. Sadness is not.

I no longer relate to people who only want to be happy. Oddly enough, I was that person earlier in life. Purpose hadn’t come into focus for me as a young man. Nowadays however, purpose screams at me. It calls to me. It’s loud and in my face. Perhaps my sadness is even more tied to purpose than it is to pain, in the sense that sometimes the search for purpose is a sad and lonely venture.

Most people don’t relate (and that’s perfectly fine and expected), but I know a few who are reading this and shaking their heads, “yes” and saying, “I get it.” In fact, I spoke with a friend at church last week who I never expected to understand what I was talking about, but he totally got it.

Perhaps my sadness is even more tied to purpose than it is to pain.

I know other empaths who carry a lot of sadness with them (as I do). Accept the fact that it’s OK. Also know that sometimes emotional pain comes in and it’s louder and stronger than our typical sadness that we carry. I believe we can use this sharp emotional pain in a similar way we use our dull sadness. The sharp emotional pain isn’t meant to stay with us. It’s supposed to burst. Let it fuel great things in you, but let it go whenever it’s time for it to go.

Look for healthy outlets. Good things will happen.

“You’re so creative, Matt!”, they say to me, while in the same breathe they ask, “Why are you in so much pain?” Heh. Wow.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned more about over the years, it’s pain. I’ve learned I can function with pain. I’ve learned I can succeed with pain. I’ve learned how to manipulate pain (that is, if the pain isn’t too intense). Highly intense pain can lead to a wrestling match, a brawl of sorts. What I’ve learned most about my pain however, is it’s a great source for creativity.

Whether it be writing, music, visual design or any other type of creative outlet, I encourage you to reach deep into your emotions and feel for new avenues and fresh ideas. People will doubt you. They will gossip about you. Some will even shut you out and leave you. You don’t need those people. They don’t try to understand you and most importantly they can’t accept you. Their loss.

I don’t wish pain upon anyone, but I don’t have to, because we all have it. I’m simply offering you a perspective that says, “Don’t just be in pain, make it count. Do something great with it (or at least something fun and time-consuming)”

I’ll add that meditation, prayer, and physical exercise are key ingredients for channeling your pain in a healthy way.

I’ve learned that people will judge you and they will judge you QUICKLY, if not IMMEDIATELY. People of any religion. People of no religion. They judge all the same. You have two options: 1) You can allow their inappropriate, haphazard judgement to drive your decisions; or 2) You can drive and they can fall to the wayside. I choose option two. I have no time for haters. No time.

Don’t exist in a bubble of “what will people think”. Exist in a world of self-expression where you’re the one being fully transparent while the judges are all lying to themselves and putting on masks. Everyone is creative in some way. Don’t let others dictate where your creativity goes. Take it where you need it to go. This isn’t easy for some of us, but it’s so necessary. I’m getting there. I’m making progress. You can too.

Get better. Heal. Be real… Be you.

For nearly a year now, I’ve been dealing internally with the fallout from three very painful relationships that were lost or never materialized or whatever. I’ve been in a vicious cycle (of deceit) that consists of the following emotional intervals: Animosity, Empathy, Resentment, Self-doubt, Withdrawal, and Sadness. It’s taxing and it’s draining, but it can be life changing if you are willing to look inwardly.

Many people go through this type of struggle and easily move on to permanent liberation from it. That’s awesome if you are wired in a way that you can achieve such an awesome escape. I sincerely applaud you and I’m even a bit envious. If “just move on” or “just get over it” is your mantra, then that is WONDERFUL. That means you don’t have to deal with the same vicious cycles that many of us do, however if your sentiment is that EVERYONE should be able to just move on or just get over something, then you are living in a detached reality. Our reality doesn’t work that way.

I’m writing this in an effort to exude my feelings that are consistently suppressed behind my inability to accurately express and explain them. I don’t want to hold onto things. Inability to expunge negative feelings from my mind (and even my heart) is not something I desire. I envy my wife because she can quickly let things go, but I also understand that we are all different and as one trait causes us to struggle another helps us to thrive. Perhaps it’s the relationship between defects and virtues, but that’s another discussion for another day.

I’ll refer throughout this post to “my current situation”. By that, I’m referring to the current challenge I’ve been dealing with internally for quite some time.

The amount of time I spend in each interval of the cycle varies, not only as the intervals relate to one another, but also from iteration to iteration.

Animosity

I’m going to start with animosity because of all the emotions in this cycle, it’s the one that I like the least and fear the most. You can define it as “strong hostility”. Wow, those are two very powerful words. What this looks like in my current situation is, “I can’t believe someone could treat me that way. How dare they? What did I do to deserve such ugliness, such disdain and disrespect. Animosity, like most negative emotions, has tunnel vision. It only focuses on self. It doesn’t consider the other person or their past, pain, or experiences. Luckily for me, in my current situation, I’m in and out of this emotion very quickly and on to the next, more desirable emotion, empathy.

Empathy

Growing up, I never heard the word “empathy”. I saw a lot of anger and resentment, but not much empathy. Empathy can be described as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy is a positive emotion. You have to be deliberate with it and most of all, you have to humble. There is no empathy without humility. In my current situation this emotion is strong and keeps everything in perspective. It allows me to consider the other person and even make decisions that often put me at a disadvantage. Empathy is a strong emotion, strong enough to carry other emotions like resentment.

Resentment

I know what you’re probably thinking, “Isn’t resentment and animosity the same thing?” At a high level they are similar yes, however I believe that animosity comes first and can ultimately result in resentment. Resentment then spends a lot of time reflecting upon its subject. Where animosity feels more like anger, resentment feels more like regret (in a general sense toward a specific subject). In my current situation, it’s a replaying in my mind of the highlights of the conflict as they relate to the disadvantages I feel I was up against. It’s regretting my actions, their actions, the circumstance, and the feelings then, now, and in the future. In this cycle, resentment speaks loudly and always bounces back to me, causing the next emotion, self-doubt.

Self-Doubt

Perhaps the most internal negative emotion in this cycle, self-doubt says, “You have no worth. You are just an ant among seven billion other ants. This other person thought so little of you, that they did [hurtful action]. It is the most debilitating emotion in my current situation. It betrays me. It demotivates me. It hurts me. It makes me feel no more worthy than the dirt we walk on. It manifests itself in my outer-world through things like, “I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror, so I’m going to completely change my look, grow a long beard and long hair etc.” Now you understand why my look changes so often. Naturally, self-doubt pushes me further and further into my mind and subsequently into the next point in this cycle, withdrawal.

Withdrawal

Fully propelled by self-doubt, along with a clear avenue paved by my introverted nature, I withdraw from the outside world. In my current situation this looks and feels really dark. It involves me spending a lot of time by myself, working, eating, and exercising by myself, not speaking or making much eye contact with people, and disconnecting greatly from people and the sensory world. Withdrawal naturally confuses my intuition because I start collecting too much data from within my own mind and not from actual things in the physical world. It can lead to overthinking and ultimately lands me at the final emotion in the cycle, sadness.

Sadness

Unlike some of the other negative emotions in this cycle, which are mostly supported by empathy, for me sadness isn’t really a negative emotion at all. It’s a soothing, relaxing emotion that bursts with creativity and supplements my empathy. It’s powerful and serves as a release of all the other negative emotions. If empathy supports the barrel (of negativity and pain), then sadness is the release valve that allows the negativity and pain to flow out (of the barrel). I don’t mind sadness and I view it differently than most people do, but I understand that a balance between sadness and happiness is important. In this cycle, as the sadness begins to run thin, and I begin to return to the sensory world, and perhaps reality, the animosity begins to creep back in and there you have this cycle of deceit.

Most often I don’t understand my feelings, however being the introspective person that I am, if I take the time and look inwardly, the riddle can be solved and I think it’s important to try to solve it. I know it’s not going to fix my current situation, but hopefully it’s going to eliminate a lot of confusion that I feel within myself.

The more we know about ourselves, the better we can be for everyone else.