Carla Dibello On Why We Shouldn’t Run From 2020 Too Fast
The entrepreneur and celebrity style insider reveals why, sometimes, the best thing to do when moving forward is to stop and reflect…
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, 2020 was an incredibly tough year for everyone.
We’ve had to deal with an overwhelming amount of trauma – both collectively and personally. We’ve dealt with every stage of grief, multiple dead ends, open wounds, pivots, and growing pains. We’ve been forced to look into the darkest corners of the world’s psyche and in the deepest of our own.
Collectively, I can feel us all looking to the future with so much eagerness. There is a vaccine and it’s finally being distributed. Economies that have been hanging onto life support have a gust of oxygen coming. Our world, which went from feeling vast and infinite to claustrophobic and limited in a matter of days, is starting to expand again. We are reaching the light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s understandable that we would want to run forward; to rush into the light. To look forward and not back. To bask in the relief of the future. I get it. I have the same urge. But after everything that has happened, it’s crucial that we not turn our back on 2020 – that we not sweep it under the rug, and with it the lessons and growth that came from it.
Sometimes, in the name of hope, and in the efforts for a better future, we need to not move forward. We need to sit with our current state. Our emotions. Our discomfort. Our pain. We need to examine how it has affected us physically, psychologically, spiritually. We need to commune with it and let it speak to us. And if we do not do that, we are doing our future selves a great disservice, missing an enormous opportunity to face the future stronger than ever before.
As a society, we have conditioned ourselves to run from pain, or anything uncomfortable, for that matter. To treat unsettling emotions as though they were a disease. We have been taught to ‘cure’ them, to get rid of them as though they are a sign of weakness. To focus on ‘good vibes only.’ But our emotions are there for a reason. They are our canaries in a cage, warning us that something is not right. Ignoring your emotions and gut instincts, which are inherently your body’s alarm system, is a recipe for disaster. Running from pain is the antithesis of healing. It’s ignoring the problem and letting it fester beneath the surface. Unconscious pain only begets more pain. It only begets more bad habits and more self-sabotaging thoughts and actions.
We all fought our way through 2020 as reluctant warriors, wielding weapons that felt too heavy for us to carry alone. We are eager to put our weapons down and to run as fast as possible away from the scene of the war. But sometimes, being a warrior means remaining still, in order to face the battles that still rage inside us long after the dust settles on the battlefield.
This is how we do our future selves justice – by dealing with our past and our present in order to understand ourselves. To heal our wounds the right way and not just cover them up. To face our darkest fears and worries in order to expunge them and to nurture ourselves back to an unwavering understanding of our deepest selves.
Your bright future starts with rediscovering and reaffirming who you are right now. Don’t rush it. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that growth can be found in every and all directions and not just forward. That absolutely nothing is permanent and this is the only thing that is constant. That in times of uncertainty, we had better be able to count on ourselves. That with uncertainty comes new and enlightened perspectives. That when things shift with growth, it can be painful. But it can also release pain you may have never known you carried. And that in the end, it’s always worth it.
Lead image courtesy of Instagram/@carladibello
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s January 2021 Issue