I’ve been up and down emotionally the last few days. I had the inefficient worrying to manage, then the up of the better-than-expected day with some hurdles successfully hurdled. Yesterday, I not so jokingly said to a friend that my ass hurt. When she asked why I replied that it was because several people were being pains in it. Basically I experience a series of aggravating situations. Unfortunately, rather than tap my car door and leave them behind before Tai Chi class, I brought them with which made me less even-keeled and more stressed about dealing with some challenges and changes.
It isn’t like me to not be able to roll with stuff, but I couldn’t last night. This is alien behavior. I’ve always had the rep of a champion coper, able to deal with tough stuff, get it done, etc. It isn’t like I fell apart, but I was not in a good, even-keeled mood at all.
I really have to wonder how much of this is because I don’t eat over the emotions. I’m not stuffing them down and smothering them with massive quantities of food. I’m not emotionally eating in the manner or extent that I used to. It will probably serve me well to remember that handling the feelings without food, when that was my go-to coping mechanism for most of my life, is one more thing that will take time to be familiar. It requires new strategies and coping mechanisms. I can go it. I just need time and practice.
Weighty Matters 
My therapist talks about emotions as being waves and how I need to learn to ride the waves, go up and down with them, and accept that they are temporary. The ocean is permanent, but not the waves. If we can truly feel that things are temporary, it’s easier to deal with them. I’m working on this and so not there yet. But it’s a great metaphor and instruction.
Skye, your reply and your therapist’s metaphor have me envisioning us as surfers. Now I’m humming Surfin’ Safari. It makes me feel like I am riding my emotional waves with style and skill.
That’s ’cause you are, kiddo. (insert killer guitar riff here.)