How to Overcome Emotionally Challenging Times

How to let go of control, accept and surrender to what we're experiencing

Apr 28, 2022

We all have those bad and hard days when nothing seems to be going according to our wishes, and we don’t seem to find answers, reasons and causes to why that’s so…

This week I’ve had a few hard and bad days — more than I’d like to admit. I struggled to get out of bed in the morning and to wake up. It took me until the afternoon to be fully awake and functional and it felt awful: brain fog, pain and fatigue, lethargy, burnout symptoms and some anxiety and depression.

In this article, I’m going to talk about how to overcome emotionally challenging times by letting go of control, accept and surrender to what we’re experiencing.

The Analytical Way of solving problems

I’m a very analytical person, so my mind on those Dark Days takes on the task of exploring what might be the reasons and causes for the current malaise. “Why do I feel burned out right now? What did I do wrong?” is my default pattern of analyzing and solving my problems.

This worked very well for me in the past.

I started my fitness and wellness journey in the beginning of 2016 with exploring and learning about nutrition. I had developed some digestive problems which caused me problems with my general health and well-being, and at the same time I also wanted to improve and elevate my performance as a volleyball player.

As I started to learn more about nutrition and my body, I discovered a new area of passion for me. As I started to change my diet, I began to notice the cause and effect relation between food and my well-being and my athletic performance. If I ate what suited my body, I felt good, energetic and was performing better; if I ate something that did not suit my body, I felt worse. This started this almost OCD analytic pattern of connecting my lifestyle choice and my well-being.

With time this interest and passion spread from the topic of nutrition to different lifestyle topics — sleep, use of technology, psychology and mindset, mindfulness and meditation -, this analytical pattern grew stronger and stronger.

I’m grateful and thankful for my analytical mind since it helped me learn a lot about myself and my health problems: It helped overcome my first digestive issues in 2016, it helped me manage my reflux and GERD, helped me heal my gut dysbiosis and candida in 2017 and helped me overcome burnout in 2018.

But sometimes, that analytical pattern feels like a curse. Let me explain what I mean by that.

I tend to over-analyze everything and I want to be “in control” of my well-being, in control of my “problems” and how I feel everyday. And when I don’t feel good — like I do this week — my mind goes down the rabbit hole of analyzing what I could have done wrong that caused this malaise.

But sometimes we cannot find the answer to these questions and cannot find causes and reasons for these random malaise — or better say, cannot find any logical answers, reasons and causes — no matter how much we try.

Sometimes we can’t find a logic explanations

Most of the time my default way of thinking is still the analytical “cause and effect relation” about my health and well-being, but when nothing from my stable nutrition and lifestyle practices — that tend to normally work — don’t improve my general well-being, at that point I start to realize that there might be something at the emotional, spiritual or universal level that might be causing me problems and malaise.

And if that’s the case, the best strategy to overcome it is to accept, let go of control, surrender to it and don’t fight it back — which is one of the hardest things to do.

One of the “blessings” of my burnout is that it forced me to be and become more in tune with my body, which led to me becoming a more sensitive person: more sensitive physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc.

Being a sensitive person — or even an empath — can be a good thing and can bring, but it can also feel like a “curse”.

If you’re very sensitive, you feel what’s going on around you more fully which can be quite painful sometimes and can leave a lot of accumulated stress and emotional baggage in you if you don’t know how to process that.

Because I’ve become a very sensitive person, even an empath, I feel strongly when “something’s in the air” and it affects me very strongly.

Although I’d been pushing a bit too much and was too hard on myself and my body, the cause for my recent malaise in the previous days wasn’t entirely my fault. I got this realization after seeing an Instagram Story from an account I follow. In the story she said that she too had been feeling bad and in pain those days and that she wasn’t the only one: that some of these followers and friends were also dealing with the same problems.

The story brought me realization and relief that there might be something happening at the Universal level that was causing me those difficult days and malaise. Maybe it was the bad weather, the rain, the fog and lack of sun. Maybe it was the pressure that was pressing down. Maybe something else that I don’t know and don’t have knowledge about, who knows…

The Hidden Lessons

These Dark Days reminded me that not everything can be fully explained, that I can’t and shouldn’t always blame myself, my decisions and my actions for how I’m feeling.

I also come to realization that going forwards I have learn to be better at accepting, letting go of control and surrendering to that I’m feeling and don’t fight it back — because like Carl Jung famously said:

“What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size”

If we don’t feel, ignore or fight back our emotions and what we’re experiencing, they will grow and start fighting back which will make things worse.

Another lesson was that I need to shift my mindset: I have to take these challenges and difficult periods as a process of learning and not view them as me failing.

Firstly because this way of thinking creates negative energy and pushes us down the spectrum of negative vibrations which will further negatively affect how we feel, operate and function.

But also because it’s preposterous and arrogant to think that I know and that I have learned everything about my life, my burnout condition, my health and how things work and that I shouldn’t be experiencing these malaises and feelings of being burned out.

That’s the Ego’s way: our Ego wants to feel that it’s in control, wants to be right, wants to know and feel that it knows all the answers.

But Ego’s way is not the right and true way.

The true way is the way of our Soul — of our True Self, of our Higher Self, of our Consciousness, the way of God, however you want to call it and put it. It is to feel, to explore, to let go of control, to accept and ultimately to learn and grow. To use the challenges that we face to become our Best Selves — not just resilient, but anit-fragile.

So if and when you find yourself stuck in a difficult period and nothing seems of the lifestyle practices — nutrition, sleep, working out, stretching, nature, relaxation etc — seem to help and work, I would recommend you to focus on your emotional and spiritual state.

Here’s an exercise that has helped me when I feel like nothing else is working.

“Accepting and Letting Go” Exercise

1. Forgiveness

We all hold a bunch of things against ourselves and that might be one of the reasons for feeling unwell.

We have to forgive ourselves for being too demanding and too strict with ourselves and our body. We have to forgive ourselves for not accepting ourselves, that we adapt to others and society and neglect our needs and who we truly are. We have to forgive ourselves for all the mistakes that we have made, for all the lessons that keep coming back to us because we haven’t learned them.

We have to forgive ourselves for all the things that we subconsciously hold against ourselves.

You can do this mentally — during meditation, in prayer, etc — or you can write it all down in your journal or a piece of paper. I personally find that writing it down makes it more effective.

2. Acceptance

After we let go of what we’ve been holding against ourselves, we have to accept who and where we currently are.

We have to accept who and where we are at the moment. We have to accept our current well-being, feeling of being unwell and the problems we’re dealing with. We have to accept life as it is and find things we can be truly grateful for.

Me personally, I have to accept and be aware of the fact that even though I am currently feeling “totally f***** up”, I must not take this personally, and even though I keep repeating my mistakes does not mean that I am a complete failure, but that I have not yet learned the lessons that’s hidden in them.

Ultimately we have to accept that whatever we’re feeling, it’s okay to feel that way. Only by accepting we can move through to the other side.

Again, you can do this step mentally or by writing it down.

3. Letting go

Once we’ve forgiven ourselves and accepted who and where we currently are, we have to let it all go.

Let go of everything that doesn’t serve us. From our body, our mind and our soul.

You can do this mentally by visualizing that you’re releasing these things in the form of tension from your body, mind and soul and that they leave your body with big, long and feel-good breaths.

Or if you did the exercise by writing things down, take that piece of paper and destroy it: burn it, flush it down the toilet or throw it in the trash can. This works symbolically and helps you to let go of it and forget about it.

A huge hug and pat on the back to all of you who might be experiencing some difficult and challenging times. Even if the situation seems hopeless, remember the quote:

“This too shall pass.”

Everythings is going to be alright, you’re not alone, we’re in this together!

That’s it for this article. I would love to hear your opinions, questions or suggestions for the following articles.

Conquering Burnout

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