21/04/2022

Hello everyone. I hope you are all well. This blog post is one day late!! I am so sorry. This week has been nothing short of crazy. My dissertation is due on Monday – can you believe it? I can’t.

I wanted to share some thoughts with you today. I like this type of blog post and I don’t think my brain is physically capable of anymore science this week!

The picture above was taken at one of my favourite places (especially when it’s sunny) and look how beautiful these flowers are. I have never seen flowers like it. It is amazing that nature can create something so wonderful.

Something I always say: “Everything will work out exactly as it’s supposed to”. I genuinely believe that to my core. I love the idea that the universe is guiding me throughout life, pushing and pulling me in the right directions. You might assume that the universe always put happy situations in your life. I don’t think this is the case at all. I would argue that the most important messages that you can take from the universe is through adversity and hardship. That is what I tell myself when I am suffering or anxious. There are a few things that absolutely terrify me. 1. The dentist. 2. The doctors.

My brother has asthma, and it was particularly bad when we were young. I remember Jonathan having asthma attacks and having to rush to the hospital. It was never a good experience and I always seemed to witness something traumatic. I broke both of my wrists when I was around 8/10 and you can imagine how much that petrified me. I was so scared that I would need surgery or something crazy. Guess what? Everything was totally okay, it always is. You can imagine how scared I was for the COVID vaccines!

To this day, I am petrified of the doctors and dentist. To be honest, more so the dentist. I feel so anxious whenever I must go for a check-up, all because of a very traumatic experience at the dentist when I was very young. Ever since, there is this deep routed trauma around the dentist, and I can’t seem to shift it. Guess what? It always works out better than I could imagine beforehand. Everything always works out.

I have been trying to work through this trauma around clinical scenarios and it is so hard to shift. Yet, I am working on it, nonetheless. I suppose we all suffer from something we just can’t shift. An upside to being passionate about health is that I don’t have to face my fears too much. I never really need to go to the doctor or get much done at the dentist.

I remind myself whenever I am feeling anxious or sad or scared, the importance of emotions. It wouldn’t be possible to feel amazing, without feeling negative emotions at some point in your week/month or year. Often situations that are very scary or nerve racking produce a feeling of euphoria after it’s all over. Ah the nature of the universe. It’s as if we must experience bad to experience the good. Well, unfortunately and fortunately, this is true. This always helps me. The idea that these feelings are a necessity to a good life. Doesn’t that help? Otherwise, we would be numb all the time, not really feeling anything. I don’t want that.

I feel as though that’s a healthy way of seeing negative emotion. Jacob said to me today, “the best thing to do is feel the anxiety and not fight it”. That resonated with me. I am always trying to suppress the emotion and pretend that everything is okay. Everything is not okay; I am anxious and scared and that’s okay. Sit in it, even if it’s uncomfortable. You might just have the most profound revelation.

I am so grateful for emotion. I don’t want to lose my emotions or feel numb. I have felt numb before and it’s not pleasant. I am sure many of you have to and would agree with me.

Today, I challenge you to accept your emotions, feel them, sit in them, and not fight it. Appreciate that you need to feel the negative to experience the good and what would a world be like without struggle and triumph.

Thank you for reading to my thoughts today. I hope they resonated with you.

Mairi

This week’s podcast episode: