The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest

THE MOUNTAIN IS YOU
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splayed out across a screen, one that we can relate to, and
understand, no matter how devastating it is?
How much better do we feel when we simply allow ourselves
to be aggrieved and pissed-off and irrationally mad?
When we let ourselves have it—the feeling, that is—
something incredible happens. We no longer have to take
it out on other people, because we are no longer relying on
their validation to get us through it.
We can be aggrieved and pissed and mad and do our own
processing without hurting anyone else.
When people are crying out or acting out in their lives,
they aren’t just asking for help. They are most often just
asking for someone to affirm that it is okay to feel the way
that they do. And if they have to inflate and exaggerate
circumstances for you to truly feel the weight and impact
that they do? They’ll do it. They’ll do whatever it takes
to get someone else to say: I am so sorry for what you are
going through. This is not because they are incompetent or
dumb. It is because in a world that does not teach us how
to adequately process our own feelings, we must often rely
solely on our maladaptive coping mechanisms.
When we cannot validate our own feelings, we go on a
never-ending quest to try to force others to do it for us,
but it never works. We never really get what we need.