If there’s one thing I’ve learned from therapy, it’s that every feeling has a purpose. And there’s often something that those “unpleasant” feelings try to protect us from. I’ve witnessed that firsthand with anxiety.

It wasn’t until I accepted my anxiety and became better friends with it, that I got to watch many pieces of my life fall in place. My anxiety has never faded away though. In fact, I think over the last year alone, my anxiety has managed to get in my way of doing many of the things I used to so effortlessly do earlier. I cannot deny it has done some real damage that I’m still trying to deal with/recover from. But one thing I’m sure my anxiety is no longer able to do is: make me hate myself. or blame myself. or think there’s something wrong about myself. or talk back to my thoughts and invalidate them when it kicks in. I’m grateful I’m at a stage where I completely accept and embrace the anxious side of me.

Yet I keep forgetting that the same applies to other feelings. Guilt is always on top of the feelings I absolutely despise. I’ve cried my eyes out on so many nights because of it, I’ve indeed blamed myself – even shamed myself because of it. I’ve desperately prayed on multiple occasions that God could make it go away for good. That the world could be free of this terribly torturing feeling. And never once was I able to make sense of why something so evil exists.

Watching this video truly had all the bells ringing inside, reminding me of how similar feelings are only really there to protect. It might not even be just about parents and the attachment relationship, though that already explains a lot. But it’s also “expectations” in general, and what they’ve managed to do to our tiny little minds as we attempted to explore the world growing up. Comparing this to the whole Jibreel-Musa interaction is just powerful, it’s helping me think about guilt in a whole different light. And those words made me think of the possibility that one day, I can celebrate this feeling without trying to push it away. That one day I can call my guilt and I “friends” and feel okay about its existence. It gave me hope, and I genuinely hope it gives you some of that, too! (: