I KNOW YOU DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING-PLANNING A WEDDING DURING A DIFFICULT TIME
Not all weddings look like the ones in the old Disney princess movies. Some brides will pass through the valley of sorrow while planning their weddings. Unexpected illnesses of parents and other family members, unexpected job losses, unexpected financial hardships, and unexpected conflicts with toxic relationships that form part of their lives can happen while planning the wedding day.
Some brides already come with wounds from their past, and some will have to get married without the company of their dear family members living in a faraway country. Some brides get married while they bleed. And my dear bride-to-be, I am not being pessimistic about this, it's a fact, and if you are one of those brides still bleeding, my heart is with you. I do care and understand.
Planning a wedding amid trials and tribulations comes with many heavy emotions. It is like you have to be happy, but you can't. It looks like this precious moment is being robbed right before your eyes. People that don’t know anything about your trials start to call you being dramatic or emotional. Some even joke about calling you a bridezilla.
The day you have been waiting for is now dark and surrounded by bad news. You never knew that you would experience depression in the middle of your planning. An exaggeration? Ask the hundreds of brides in 2020 who had to cancel their weddings because they had to bury someone or be locked down. After the pandemic, the uncertainty, what ifs, and anxiety are now more evident in the modern brides-to-be than before.
After 2020, people are still in love and thinking about getting married, but everything looks so expensive, and I will not even mention the pandemic of bad news worldwide. Sometimes brides can be on the verge of a nervous breakdown if taking the wedding planning and else by themselves without taking care of themselves or asking for help.
Understand the blues
Emotions don't have a brain but must be tamed. Otherwise, they will master our lives. A bad comment from someone, a tricky word, or even a bad sight can trigger anxiety and depression in some people. This is why taking care of what we feel and how we interpret events from the beginning is so important.
I wouldn't say I like to separate emotions into negative and positive emotions because I think that all emotions fulfill a purpose in our lives, but for this post, let's call them negative and positive emotions.
Negative emotions help us move in other directions, set boundaries, or prune toxic relationships in our life. Just imagine, if you did not feel uncomfortable around toxic relationships, you would stick to them forever. So, the debilitating pain you feel helps you put limits or say goodbye to the relationships that don't need to continue in your life. This is why negative emotions are not our enemies but messengers telling us when we must change direction.
As I told you before, negative emotions can make you grow and mature. Negative emotions, like sorrow, have the power to heal. Yes, it’s okay to mourn even while preparing for the wedding day.
Positive emotions are beautiful and give us energy, encouragement, and motivation to continue doing what we are doing, and they help us enjoy life.
We love positive emotions because they make us feel good, but we hate negative emotions because of how we feel.
Untamed emotions are suitable for no one. These emotions can hurt the ones we love and break old good friendships and relationships. They make us do things that we would not do in our sound or sober minds.
They blind us and make us self-centered, and can even make us sick.
The problem is not feeling emotions; the problem is not about positive or negative emotions. The problem is when a bride lets her feelings master her life.
Just like a puppy that needs to be trained and tamed so he won’t put your life upside down. We need to learn to tame our emotions.
But how can we tame them? by having compassion and empathy toward us and giving ourselves the right to feel and not repress them. Tears cleanse your soul, don’t keep them inside.
Bleeding while getting married
It is challenging to plan a wedding and enter a new life season when a bride doesn't know how to manage her current emotions. The wedding planner can't give her best; the constantly changing moods drain the bridesmaids, and the career that once was so important, can be on the verge of collapse.
When a bride is hurt with a broken heart or in an anxious mode, everything can look suspicious or hurtful for her.
The mom-in-law's missed appointment to see the dress can feel like rejection even though there are supporting reasons to miss it.
The boyfriends' spared visits because of the job are feeding her fears and insecurities, and so on. Little by little, a sweet lady is becoming self-centered and jealous, not because she's terrible or selfish but because she's bleeding from the inside. A small conversation can make a bride in this condition change the wedding planner, move the wedding date, change the bridesmaids, and even cancel the wedding and end the relationship just apparently for nothing.
A bleeding bride prioritizes her needs over everyone else's, and even though people around her have the best intentions for her life, it's tiring and debilitating for them to carry that burden. Brides can blame others for being selfish when this is not the case. A simple piece of advice can release the bridezilla.
Untamed emotions are also a cause for divorce in the united states. When our survival brain has taken over control of our lives, no matter how hard your partner tries to make life beautiful for you, you will never be satisfied and will always see the dark side of the relationship. That’s why happiness depends solely on you alone. No one can carry the responsibility of making you happy; it’s draining.
Bridezillas are well known for overspending. Purchases and purchases bring a little joy but a sense of emptiness when the moment has passed, and it happens with food, too. A bride is just looking to soothe her pain so she can fall into addictive behaviors that will affect her overall health.
To tame her emotions, a bride needs to understand that emotions are not her master. A bride needs to give herself a personal evaluation of how was her personality and her emotional responses before her boyfriend asked her to marry him. Was she very sensitive? Quick to anger? Unforgiving? or the current outrage has been unleashed because of stress related to the wedding?
You can train your emotions by avoiding the temptation to respond quickly to each of them
It's important to know what emotion you are experiencing to tame it. If you can name them, you will be able to tame them.
One of the best recommendations I can give to a bride experiencing wild emotions is to calm down. Give yourself the gift of breathing. When you focus on your breathing, you are bringing your brain back to the present moment to make all the worries and bad memories tormenting you disappear.
There are different techniques for breathing that you can find out on the internet. Check them out to see which method works for you.
Another piece of advice I can give you to calm raw emotions is going for a walk or exercise, going to bed early, and turning off the cell phone once you get home. A good night of sleep can make a bride feel healthy again. Other small things like writing a journal or talking to a friend can help, too.
Love, compassion, and empathy for yourself and your neighbors are all that you need before acting. I know that what you are going through as a bride is challenging. I know you want to scream to others to heal the anger and the sense of injustice you carry inside; maybe throwing a tantrum, venting, and crying when nothing is happening as you planned can make you feel a little alleviated but what would be the future consequences of unleashing all the current emotions? Is it going to hurt someone? Is it going to require you to apologize? Is it going to make you feel bad after you calm down? Or is it going to ruin the relationships that you are just building?
Are you going to make them feel embarrassed about your behavior?
Emotions are not your enemies but a gift from God for you. It’s ok to feel them. What’s not ok is to let them rule you.
Do you have to cover them or suppress them? by any means! but it would be best if you examine yourself for the best way to give them an exit from your body healthily.
That can be talking to your future husband about what’s happening in you, talking to a friend, or just going to a Christian counselor.
Most importantly, don’t forget to share what’s happening to God. Go to Him in prayer and ask others to pray for you so you can heal and enjoy the blessing of the wedding and the blessing of marriage.
Take care♥
