Cry Baby, Cry

I just finished reading this terrible book.

By terrible I mean completely insightful and wonderful, but made me bawl like a big ole' baby. 

I had seen the movie prior to reading the book, but reading words on a page always seems to invoke more emotion for me.

Y'all, I lost it. I cried and I cried.

The ironic part is I read to cope. If I am stressed or sad or angry, I will pick up a book and dive in. Losing myself in someone else's life, like Claire in Outlander or a different world entirely like Middle Earth, is the most cathartic thing. 

I realized as I was crying, that I started reading because I needed a break from my emotions.

Yet, here I was, all up in my emotions.

I just wanted to numb out, and my go to coping skill wasn't working. 

I started to think about how often my coping skills fail (I'm a counselor so of course I would).

Reading nearly always helps. 

In that moment though, my coping skills weren't working and I may or may not have cried over that too. 

Finding coping skills that actually work isn't easy, and I never really thought about the one's I have not working.

I was trying to think of what else I could do to get out of my feelings when it hit me.  

In that moment, I really didn't need to cope.

In that moment, I needed to cry. I needed to feel stressed and sad and upset. 

Just like I learned from Sadness in Inside Out, feeling your emotions isn't the end of the world. It's healing! 

So just remember, when your coping skills seem to be failing maybe it just means you need to cry it out or scream into a pillow.

Maybe it just means you need to call your best friend and rage and rage and rage.

*Cough* or go see a counselor *Cough*

I've got $10 bucks that says you'll feel better.  

Sidenote: I started the sequel... so far, so good!

Disney Hangover

But really.   

Think back to that moment when you realized real life relationships weren't Disney fairy-tales.

I remember feeling devastated and pretty hopeless. It took me a little bit to realize I could still have movie moments in my relationship as long as I worked for it.

No one teaches you how to actually have a good relationship. Parents don't talk to you about that kind of stuff. I seem to recall my mom always saying, "Just don't come home pregnant". That's not relationship advice. Honestly, that's not even practical life advice because she didn't even tell me how not to get pregnant.

(Sidenote: I did eventually learn that)

Despite all that, I learned how to actually work in and for my marriage. It wasn't easy, but it did get easier over time. And the love I feel both toward and from my husband... definitely Disney-like!

It's not hopeless and you actually can love your partner like Meg Ryan loved Tom Hanks in all those 90s movies. 

Probably not all the time like Sleepless in Seattle made you believe. You're thinking of when they walked out of the Empire State Building aren't you? 

You can definitely have tons of moments like that. 

You can be wildly happy and insanely in love with your other half! You just have to put some work in... and I can teach you how!

We may whistle while we do it. Who knows!