Collapse vs. Release
Understanding the Difference Between Healing and Dwelling
There is a period after you release a lot of grief when sadness tries to bait you back in. This is particularly after you have processed lots of trauma and have allowed yourself to cry it out, journal it, meditate on it, or do whatever helps you process your pain. This distinction is important, as I’m starting to learn the difference between release and collapse.
Being baited back into sadness after you’ve gone through a period of internal purging is what one might consider to be collapse. It’s the energy of giving in to the subtle pain beneath the surface that still wants to relive and storyline everything wrong or unresolved in your life. Whereas, release is simply the act of acknowledging the grief of your experience.
Both of these instances can look like screaming and crying but, one instance is emotion with the intention to make space for healing, while the other is indulging in pain one has already processed.
(Blue, black, and white butterflies represent Integration — not erasing the pain, but living with it transformed. They also represent healing after painful times.)
That’s not to say that processing grief is always linear and that there can never or should never be a revisiting of things that once hurt us. However, this is the precise reason why knowing the difference between your emotional states is so beneficial.
The trouble with being baited back into sadness is that it doesn’t have any purpose. Ruminating on an issue just for the emotional payout it provides is unhealthy and unproductive for you emotionally. This is the feeling some people even become addicted to. The emotional satisfaction of victimhood works to soothe the tinge of accountability that beckons for attention.
It’s okay to be depressed. I’m depressed most of the time. But, I’m not always sad. With a lifetime of depression under my belt, I’ve learned that my emotional state is directly tied to my awareness. But, my sadness is connected to my expectations and subsiquent disappointments.
While I can have the awareness that everything isn’t as great as I might prefer, I’ve learned that I don’t have to indulge, storyline, or monologue the sadness every time it arises. Doing so, keeps you attached to those timelines and energies and ultimately blocks your emotional ascension.
If you’re the opposite, wherein any sense of sadness sends you running for the hills or a means to numb or disassociate, that might be your emotional body begging you to allow yourself to grieve. In this case, your nervous system needs release. Give yourself the space to grieve and find acceptance for your experience. Know that doing so isn’t a collapse of your identity but, an expansion of your soul to hold all that life continues to throw at you.
Have you experienced emotional baiting? If so, feel free to share your experience in the comments below.