feelings
Quick recap/Back STORY:
In February 2022, I wrote a post: fog … and in February 2023, I wrote a “sequel” post: lifted. If you haven’t read those already, or if you don’t remember them, I’d encourage you to start there before reading the rest of this one, as it’s more or less a continuation.
PART 3: FEELINGS
When I wrote “lifted” about a year ago, I was definitely feeling better, and more like myself. I could laugh, and I found joy in things that I had lost to an extent. Trust me, feeling good and happy is amazing and I don’t want to diminish those feelings. But what I have found to be more telling, and more important through this whole process, is my ability to feel “bad” things – to have, acknowledge, and express my negative emotions.
We all have emotions. Not all of us acknowledge our emotions; not all of us express or manage them in a healthy, safe, and/or productive manner. If you know me, you know I have a 5-year-old daughter, and I can say with certainty that learning about our emotions and how to display them is not an innate process!! (If you want to learn more about emotions at different levels, I recommend reading this article from the Calm app: The Feelings Wheel). Emotions can be complicated, but they are pretty essential to a meaningful human existence.
Two years ago, I was in a state that felt very negative, and at best “neutral” … I was afraid to let any negative emotions settle in. By not allowing myself to feel those negative emotions, I was essentially numbing myself to the realities of our world and my life. It was a little bit like Eeyore, in that I just let a lot of things roll off my shoulders with a “well my life already sucks so what’s one more little thing” mentality. Unfortunately, that also meant the good things rolled right on by too, and I got stuck in the mindset of “why do I deserve anything good?”. Neither was particularly helpful in a short or long term!
Fast forward to today – I am feeling all the feels! Emotions are a part of our interactions and fundamental human experiences every single day. Now, by allowing any emotion – sadness, anger, frustration, joy, angst, happiness – to find its place in my body and my mind, I feel like I am a better person. I know that simply having these emotions will not catapult me into a months-long depressive state.
I can look back on the feelings wheel and identify moments from each day or week that fit into the primary emotions, and tease out more specifically what exactly I was feeling in that instance. And, thanks to some guidance in a recent workshop from my friend and business coach, Carly Hamilton-Jones, I can connect my emotional state with what I am experiencing physically – and maybe it ends at that, simply making the connections and moving on … but often bringing that awareness of an emotion connected to a physical sensation can be really empowering, and by changing one, you can change the other.
The point of this post is to let you know that feelings are normal. And also that I’m really happy to be feeling them all, and (I think) processing, expressing and managing them in a relatively healthy manner.
Two years ago, I was defeated and empty … one year ago I was happy … today I am whole.
We all go through a huge range of emotions in our daily lives, and it’s OK to have different sensations, different reactions, and different outcomes related to our emotions. Again, I’m not a mental health professional, but I do see quite a variety of emotions when I am working with my clients, as a PT and as a coach, and I can say with certainty that the mind-body connection is real. So real. So check out that feelings wheel, identify your emotions, connect it with your physical sensation, and see what comes up! You might be surprised at what your body is telling you, and at the very least, you’ll be acknowledging your human-ness and that’s a good thing too!
Go feel all the feels, and remember I am always here to lend an ear :)