There is a lot to be discussed on the topic of feelings. Do you feel too much? Do you not feel enough? Do you let your feeling be influenced by others? Are you managed by your feelings or do you manage them? Are you an empath? If so, what kind of empath are you? We dig and dig and dig to understand what it is we are feeling and why. When we do this, though, we need to take a deep breath and recognize that what we are doing is thinking about the feeling. We are rationalizing the feeling. We try to give the feeling context so we can move out of the feeling and label it as a way to deal with it.
We are not supposed to think through our feelings.
They are not thinkings.
We are supposed to feel through them.
From the time we are little, we are taught to think through everything. We are taught to analyze and scrutinize. We are taught to abandon reason. To purely let ourselves feel can be frightening. It is frightening because it is a foreign idea, but also, because it means fulling embracing something that makes us uncomfortable. Feeling delight in something may result in us feeling a little silly. Feeling excited might make us feel vulnerable to a potential let down. To mitigate our feelings makes us feel adult and in control. We are praised for mastering our emotional selves and hiding our feelings with masks of contentment, agreement or complacency. We gladly trade away those pieces of ourselves rather than expose how we feel. We think through the feeling so we can stop it.
But what if we approached feelings differently? What if we chose to feel? You might be asking yourself, "What is the harm in thinking through my feelings and managing them? Why do anything different at all? What is the value in it?" Feeling can inform us on a non-rational level that something important is changing or needs attention. It affords us the opportunity to rely upon our instincts. To "listen to our guts" rather than be paralyzed or misled by a process of over-thinking. On a personal level, I had become intimate friends with Over-thinking and she did not want to be relegated to the back-burner. But, in order to grow, there are times when we have to recognize what is no longer serving us. Over-thinking was no longer what I needed. I needed to learn how to be comfortable in my feelings.
In her book, You Are Enough: Heartbreak, Healing, and Becoming Whole, author Mandy Hale explains,
“It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to cry.
It’s okay to ask questions (even of God.)
It’s okay to yell and scream and feel
and even cuss if you need to.
It’s okay to be right where you’re at,
without trying to frantically search for the purpose
that will come from your pain
or the message that will come from your mess.
I’m finding that some pain doesn’t serve a purpose.
Sometimes pain is just pain…
and we can let it be just that.
We can feel it without trying to heal it.
We can bring our fists down hard on all the feel-good,
sing-song, empty platitudes
and send the pieces scattering
right along with the shattered pieces of our hearts.
WE CAN.”
We can feel. We should feel. And as we feel we will become familiar with those feelings and know them. In doing so, we will know ourselves. We will know what those feelings are wanting us to respond to and why. We will know our bodies better as well. This in depth illustration from the study, Bodily Maps of Emotions, published by Lauri Nummenmaa, Enrico Glerean, Riitta Hari, and Jari K. Hietanen in the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates how our many and complex feelings manifest themselves differently in our bodies.
Taking a deep breath, stopping to recognize how we are experiencing the feelings that have set upon us, understanding how our body is responding to that, allowing our instincts to inform us as to how we need to respond, will serve us well. Stepping away from the act of thinking is difficult at best. Breaking it down to simple yes and no questions can help to simplify things. Do I know why I am experiencing these feelings? Is it healthy that I am experiencing these feelings? Is there an action that I need to take as a response to these feelings? Questions like these have simple yes or no answers. They are not meant to be perseverated over, but rather to ask the question and follow your initial instinctive response. Then, allow yourself to feel it until it resolves as it was intended. When we do this, we find that we can embrace the process, feel freely, and grow.
One of the most difficult feelings for me to experience as I was navigating my Separation following 28 years of marriage, was loneliness. I had not really ever been in a situation to experience loneliness. I met my ex when a teenager and had never really been alone. Loneliness was a terrible feeling for me to grapple with. I had two choices, I could run from it or face it. I knew running from it was running away from growth and the purpose of this time in my life was to grow. I needed to face this. I took that deep breath and examined how I was experiencing this feeling, how my body was manifesting it and I asked myself, "Do I know why I am experiencing loneliness?" Yes, I do. I then asked myself, "Is loneliness an appropriate feeling to be upon me under the circumstances?" Yes, it is. Finally, "Is there something I need to change or take action with?" Yes, I need to be able to be comfortable alone with myself. There it is, my opportunity for growth.
Had I felt the loneliness and chosen not to sit in it, but instead get rid of it by filling my time with distractions, I would not have allowed myself the opportunity to evolve into a person who no longer feels loneliness when alone. The process of evolving from an individual who was feeling terrible in my loneliness, to embracing my alone time as a valuable refuge from the hustle and bustle of daily life, was not an easy process. It was messy. It was painful. It was also liberating.
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