A post shared by Poet + Life Coach (@annabelleblythe) on Jul 20, 2017 at 9:19am PDT

I have a massive problem with most self-help out there.

You’ve heard it, we’ve all heard it—the advice to replace negative feelings with positive ones. Identify the bad ones and cut them out! Feeling anger? See it and choose happy instead.

Resist it.

Block it.

Well guess what?

That sh*t doesn’t work.

Time and time again, I’ve seen this in my life, in my friends lives, and in the lives of the people around me: when we block emotions, even with good intentions of moving “past” them, these emotional cycles still run us in the background. They control our lives, and continue to pop out in unexpected ways with increasing strength.

It’s an exhausting struggle stuffing down how we feel, yet we’re all guilty of it at one point or another.

Newsflash: The only way out is through.

We can run from it. We can resist it. We can feel it a comfortable 80 percent.

But until we really allow the feeling of whatever we are afraid of to penetrate us, we can’t and won’t be free of it.

Only when we accept death, do we truly begin to live.

Only when we accept imperfection, do we truly begin to know our inherent perfection.

Only when we accept anger, do we feel joy.

Only when we accept grief, do we experience immense love.

Our emotional lives exist on an extraordinarily colourful spectrum. We have to feel both sides. By blocking the perceived “negative” emotions, we block the “positive” ones, too.

We cannot run from the things we are afraid of experiencing in the world.

For years, I ran from the feeling of being ostracized by my family. I felt like the black sheep. The outsider. I was so scared of and resistant to being pushed away that I subconsciously manifested that exact reality. It was only when I allowed myself to dive into the feeling of, “Maybe I will always be a lone wolf. Maybe they’ll never accept me. That’s all very possible,” did the relationships begin to soften, and shift.

What we resist, persists. Transcending is not blocking out or running away. It’s moving through—and beyond.

We must surrender to all that we are afraid of becoming.

It’s not easy. But it’s the way.

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Author: Annabelle Blythe
Image: Author’s own
Editor: Callie Rushton
Copy Editor: Catherine Monkman
Social Editor: Nicole Cameron