It’s OK To Not Be OK

It’s OK to sometimes not be OK. Getting down on yourself for not being OK when you feel like you should be OK will only make you more upset and frustrated. Getting irritated with yourself for not always holding it together and being happy when you feel like logic is telling you you should be happy will only make you feel not OK even more. We need to learn to give ourselves a break sometimes. If we had a friend who was going through a hard time or had something happen in his or her life, would we expect them to just be OK and move on? No, we wouldn’t. Even if nothing bad had happened, we don’t expect the people around us to be OK 24/7. So, why do we sometimes expect that out of ourselves and get mad if we have a hard time with our emotions briefly and for a moment or more feel weak? We are human. We have hormones, feelings, illogical logic that runs through our minds, and a vivid imagination that all combine to sometimes make us feel things that may not make sense to anyone including ourselves. It’s OK to give yourself permission to not be OK when you aren’t up to holding yourself up and holding yourself together any longer. As long as you ask yourself why you might not be OK and try to figure out what it could be if the sadness and feelings of failure lasts for what seems like too long and you have a hard time getting back up on your feet, it is OK to let yourself not be the perfect person upholding the world, your family, or your life like you might want to be. If in our hearts we know that it is OK to sometimes not to be OK, then we will feel more comfortable with reaching out and asking for help from someone when we aren’t feeling right. We won’t be embarrassed and think of ourselves as a failure for not having it together and we could find the help that we may desperately need. It is OK to not be OK. It is normal. It is common. And we all need to accept that it doesn’t make us weak minded or faulty. We are human and sometimes things even in the smallest amounts are too hard for us to handle and we may need help handling them. We all need to lean on someone sometimes, and we all need to accept and love ourselves fully as we would a good friend, telling ourselves to seek help when we need it, and giving ourselves a mental hug, while whispering to ourselves in a gentle reminder that it is OK to not be OK.