Ride the hills
Remember the first hill you ever climbed on your bike? I mean like reeeeeeally big hill? Chances are, while you were climbing it, you might have had thoughts that went something like, “This is the biggest hill ever! This will never end! I am never going to ride my bike ever again!” Then you made it to the top, exhausted, but you made it. The view isn’t too bad, and then you get to enjoy the downhill.
Hills are like the emotions in our lives. We can’t avoid them. They are everywhere. We are hit with emotions everyday. Sometimes it is a heavy emotion. One that doesn’t feel like it is ever going to end. One that is so intense that all we can think about is giving up and not moving forward. Sometimes the emotions that we experience are more mellow, less intense, but still a steady consistent feeling. These emotions come and go, they have different levels of intensity. Sometimes the emotions come out of nowhere and we are not ready for them, other times we might never notice them.
The best way to face a negative emotion, is experience it. We can’t avoid them. The rides that we take on our bikes are not all uphill every inch of the ride. At different times in our lives we handle the hills on our rides depending on multiple factors: the bike we are on, physical health, endurance, and the weather just to name a few. Sometimes we revisit a hill that might have seemed so daunting on our first climb, but now it is climbed with ease. And sometimes we revisit a hill and think “how in the world was I able to climb that?”
No matter the path you take, there will always be hills. Experience them, ride them, learn to appreciate them. Even if you have an e-bike, you need to manage your battery life for your ride. As you build up your ability to ride up hills easier, they don’t seem so daunting.
Emotions are meant to be experienced, not avoided. Take the negative with the positive. Something that helps me when faced with a difficult hill of emotion is telling myself that I can: