The Storm Before the Lull

What I'm referring to is the way that things are often at their worst just before the pressure lifts and we find calm again.

I'm sure many of you can relate to a deadline, loitering in the distance, gradually approaching and finally looming up right in front of us.  And if we've left the task to the last moment, we'll probably experience a large amount of stress. So we rush around, plough through the stress, and finally reach the deadline. Hopefully the task will be finished and done well, but either way, the pressure will now be off, there will be a lull after the storm of stress we've just been through.  We may have lessons to learn from the experience - to be more organised in the future, that we are capable of things we didn't know we were before.  But we also get to have a rest before the next "storm" brews.

As with deadlines, so a similar thing happens with emotional challenges.  But often with them, we don't understand  it in the same way.  And also as with deadlines, we tend to have a series of emotional challenges or lessons throughout our lives, as this is the way we learn and grow.  So, as this is set to continue, it might be useful if we understood the process a bit better.

I started noticing this when I'd have huge periods of stress or feeling very low.  Sometimes things would feel at rock bottom. I'd feel down but not know why.  And I'd think "here we go again".  Then after it had got about as bad as it could get and I'd spent a day in tears, suddenly I'd wake up and feel normal again.  And although I was hugely relieved, I'd feel rather confused.

I've often thought that it would be far easier if I could just deal with my emotional challenges before they become that stressful, but somehow it doesn't seem to work like that.  And I believe this is because we tend to protect our past pain - rather too well.  This is quite understandable: if we were hurt badly in our past (and this could have been when we were a very small, vulnerable child) and we've hidden that pain away because it was too difficult to deal with at the time, then it's reasonable that we don't want to revisit it now.  Our memories of the pain are always stronger than our memories of the event.  That's our protection mechanism. So it can take a lot of discomfort before we access it and release it, which we finally do at the end of the storm.

So next time you feel a storm, take consolation from the likelihood that once you've resolved the current emotional challenge, you will find calm again.