4 “WOWZA” Things That Happen When You Start to Really Feel Your Damn Feelings
I’m getting ready to teach a workshop this Fall on FEELING YOUR DAMN FEELINGS, DAMMIT and it’s had me thinking a lot about my own history and journey of learning how to accept that gosh darnit, I’m a real live human with real live emotions.
I know we would rather be robots.
I know that in many ways, we’re well on our way to becoming robots (what with the VR and our addiction to our iPhones and our smart appliances and the self-driving cars, etc etc.)
But try as we might…
As long as us humans are walking the planet? We’re gonna have to feel some shit.
Because humans are feel-y, connective, expressive creatures, with cavernous depths to be explored and excavated, with grief in our cells and bliss in our hearts and all shades of the feeling rainbow coursing through our veins in this very moment…
We are not Alexa. We are not Siri. We are not Rosie from “The Jetsons”.
We are pulsing life-force energy dressed up in human meat-suits running on potent, electric micro-currents that need water and food and love and sunlight to survive and blossom and evolve in all the ways our Soul’s long to.
And FEELING our FEELINGS is part of that ongoing evolution.
So for those of us are who are feeling called to travel into the depths of our own emotional caves…
To do some internal splunking into the places that hurt (which are also always the places that have the power to heal), I WANT TO LET YOU KNOW ABOUT SOME STUFF THAT’S PROBABLY GONNA HAPPEN.
Because when we start to really feel our feelings? When we embrace our pulsing humanity in this way? When we remember our hearts? And our souls? And our full selves?
Wow. It’s like. A whole thing.
An epic expedition.
And there are four profound pit stops you will almost inevitably encounter along the way…
Here are 4 “WOWZA” things that happen when you start to really feel your damn feelings.
THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE YOU WILL BE HUMBLED BY HOW MUCH YOU SORTA SUCK AT IT.
Full disclosure: I thought I had been feeling my feelings for years.
After all, I have historically identified as a deeply feeling, highly sensitive person. I’d been in therapy where we talked non-stop about my feelings and I’m a consummate crier. (Not to brag or anything…)
CLEARLY, I AM A CHAMPION FEEL-Y FEEL-ER.
Lol. Or was I?
In reality, I was just incredibly masterful at avoiding my feelings by constantly analyzing them and mentally/verbally processing them.
Yes, there is a difference.
Now don’t get me wrong — being able to talk about or think about one’s feeling is incredibly valuable. Verbally processing and sharing our inner world through language is a whole skill set unto itself! But it’s just a different skill-set than actually feeeling and thoroughly moving through our feelings.
When we are in analysis/talk-about/think-about mode, it’s sort of like we’re looking at a map of a certain terrain, and having a conversation about it.
“Huh, there’s some rugged mountains over there…check out that higher elevation…oh look — a lake!”
But when we are actually feeling the feelings? It’s like we’ve parachuted directly onto the terrain, and are intentionally, boots-on-the-ground, exploring the earth.
We’re on the land, and of the land. Not above it.
It’s a very different experience to analyze a map of a place, and actually visit the place. Making comments, narrating, or have judgments and notions about the terrain…versus legitimately hiking its hills and swimming in its waters.
For the majority of my life I might have noticed that I was feeling sad, but instead of parachuting into the sadness, and learning how to be with it, and flowing with those dark waters…
I would feel the sadness, immediately contract, and fixate on the MAP.
My mind would take over in an attempt to try and FIX THE SAD and CRITIQUE THE SAD because ACK SAD SAD STOP STOP STOP. (Meanwhile, the sad’s just kept flowing, while my brain frantically pushed against and away from it.)
This makes sense, because sadness is uncomfortable. And we’ve been trained to judge and condemn almost any feeling that isn’t in the light-happy-high-vibe category.
But when we avoid the uncomfortable rumblings of any emotion, it doesn’t go away. (And in my experience, it just gets louder…it compounds on itself…it screams for attention, when it used to just be a soft whimper.)
So these days I make a point of parachuting onto my internal lands and waters as much as possible.
What’s the terrain like today? The weather? What do I actually feel?
Not: What does my mind think about what I’m feeling? What’s the story I have attached to this feeling? How can I fix or get rid of this feeling as quickly as possible?
There’s a big old difference.
2. YOU’LL PROBABLY START FEELING EVERYTHING YOU HAVEN’T BEEN FEELING.
So here I was, awakening to the uncomfortable fact that there was this whole smorgasbord of emotion I’d been avoiding for most of my life, without even realizing it.
I had gotten so good at the mental game of analysis and “GET RID OF IT!” with my feelings, that I couldn’t really comprehend how much locked up, stuffed down, smorgasbord-y stuff I was sitting on…
And once my system started realizing I was actually listening now?
That I was willing to drop in and be with some of the uncomfy stuff?
That I was committed to being in my experience, instead of trying to constantly be on the outside, glancing in?
Oh man did she exhale a deep sigh of relief…like, “OH THANK GOD. She’s actually paying attention now.”
And my system start revealing more and more of what I historically hadn’t been willing to feel.
Shame, sadness, anger, resentment, jealousy…about what, even? I didn’t always know.
But there was just stuff to be felt. And I was finally ready to do the feeling. The inner listening. The felt-sensing. The moving through. The allowing. The making space for. Let’s do this, feelings!
And here’s the really good part about this…
The more I was willing to feel all the things, the more I felt more of everything.
Peace, joy, calm, delight, exuberance, ease…
Constant suppression and avoidance had created this internal bottleneck within me, where I had wound up not only blocking against the “bad” feelings, but also blocking and numb out the “good” ones.
So if you wanna feel the good shit? Ya gotta get good at feeling some of the bad shit.
Ironic? Counter-intuitive? Annoying? For sure. But also just true.
3. Decisions? Easy. MADE.
One of the byproducts of living in avoidance of our true feelings is that we can spend a lot of time arguing with painful emotions, and wind up mistakenly attempting to tolerate the intolerable.
Something might feel genuinely awful to us, like a job we hate going to that leaves us feeling demoralized and dead inside, or a romantic dalliance that has us feeling fragile and powerless…
But because we’ve been conditioned to not tune into and trust our emotions?
Or perhaps because it’s too overwhelming to tune into how incredibly NOT GOOD something is making us feel?
We will often soldier on and convince ourselves that it’s actually fine! Or we should just be able to suck it up and deal with it! Or maybe if we just stick it out long enough, all of these awful feelings will just go away and we’ll be able to get with the program!
There’s nuance to this, but when you don’t know how to feel what you’re feeling and process your emotional responses in clean, clear, conscious ways, your mind might have this way of overriding your felt experience and keeping you stuck in stuff that is going to suck the life out of you, and force you to abandon yourself.
BIG YIKES.
Now listen: It is undeniably true that FEELINGS ARE NOT FACTS. (Meaning you might feel something — let’s say “inferior”, for example — but that doesn’t mean that you actually are inferior.)
But this is also undeniably true: FEELINGS ARE USEFUL INFORMATION.
So if we feel inferior…that feeling is trying to tell us something.
Often, it’s pointing to a degree of misalignment either in our current circumstances, or in the way that we are perceiving or relating to a situation.
When we have clear, open, access to our emotional landscape and inner worlds, and we are well-versed in understanding and trusting our internal experience, then deciphering where the misalignment or discomfort is coming from is so much easier.
And consequently, feeling empowered to make a decision on how to move through, resolve, or correct what feels off, uncomfortable, or just plain wrong, is not such a confusing clusterfuck.
I’ve seen people stay in truly intolerable situations and circumstances for a long-ass time because they simply did not want to (or did not know how to) feel the truth of what was actually going on for them.
So they tried to avoid/suppress/deny the truth of what they were feeling, and let their mind convince them of what they wanted to believe or be true about something. (“So what if this romantic dalliance is making me feel unworthy and anxious 24/7?! HE IS MY LAST CHANCE AT LOVE!”)
Please hear this: Your feelings are not the enemy. Nor are they something to be made wrong, or avoided entirely. Your feelings aren’t trying to fuck with you.
Feelings are here to guide, to inform, to illuminate, and to protect us. Always. No exceptions.
The nuance comes in understanding that sometimes our feelings will do this in funky ways.
For example: Perpetuating a feeling of inferiority that might be completely inaccurate…but is absolutely familiar…but equally uncomfortable…what the hell is that about? What is this inferiority trying to show me? Tell me? What is it wanting to communicate, in its wacky emotional way?
Again, learning how to accurately interpret our emotions can be nuanced and tricky. But for now, just know that when you start letting yourself feel what you’re actually feeling, and being honest with yourself about what your emotions are wanting to illuminate for you…
A lot of the hemming and hawing over what to do, or whether to stay or go, or wtf your next step is…
Begins to get much clearer.
4. More safety. More support. More trust. More, “Ahhh…finally…”
As a deeply feeling, highly sensitive person in a world that often asks us to harden and numb ourselves (because GOSH all those FEELINGS they’re so damn INCONVENIENT), I grew up feeling like I was simply “too much” a lot of the time.
I walked around with this strong, unspoken sense of, “There’s no space for me.”
I took up too much darn space, with all my big feelings. People didn’t always know what to do if I would get emotional unexpectedly, or suddenly feel overwhelmed by something, or cry for all kinds of potential reasons (sad? happy? moved? enthralled? ALL FAIR GAME!).
As a result, I started putting the pieces together that I was just kind of an overwhelming person. That my feelings were something that I had to protect people from, or figure out how to manage and/or minimize as much as possible.
To my parents credit, they did their best to understand and love me and my sensitivities, but they were also two working adults with their own baggage and stress who were trying to manage life and keep a couple of young humans alive…
So of course, they weren’t going to be perfect and ever-available to hold me perfectly through every single one of my emotional storms.
I craved a safe space where I could be all of me, where someone would welcome me and my big feelings with open arms, where I could let it all out and feel completely seen, and cherished, and loved, in all my varied light and dark and ever-evolving shades of gray…
Which brings me to my final point:
The coolest thing about learning how to feel my feelings?
Oh my good God. I get to be my own safe space now.
I can hold myself in a way that plugs me into this well of unshakeable safety and support that I always looked for out there.
But really, it exists in here.
In my ability to be with myself, without judgment, with all my loving presence and attention, to speak kindly and with care when I’m having a dark day or feeling something big and scary, to hold myself (sometimes literally) when I’ve got the wobbles and simply don’t know what to do…
My inner world is this sacred, comfy-cozy, resting place that I’ve made big enough and steady enough for all of my storms. And it’s such a damn relief. I don’t know how I moved through the world for so long without it.
This is not to say I do not (or cannot) go to other people for support, that I can’t lean into my partner when I’m mid-meltdown, or that I don’t need external sources of love and safety when I’m hurting.
But there is nothing quite like knowing that no matter who is (or is not) available to help or hold me when the going gets tough…
I’ve got me. In this profound, embodied way. And that’s something no one can take away from me.
I look at feeling your feelings as true “warrior work”. It takes heaps of willingness and courage to say yes to your own darkness and depths, to excavate more of your true light, and learn how to be the holder and safe space for it all.
And if you are one such courageous warrior who is feeling pulled to explore all of the above…
I’m hosting a live workshop on Saturday, October 15th to dive more deeply into the topic of Feeling Your (Damn) Feelings.
Click here to learn more about the workshop.
More than anything else, please know this: If you are a living, breathing, human being, you are built to feel.
You were made to taste and savor all the flavors of existence.
The delicious ups, the sour downs, the spicy rage and effervescent inspiration that will without fail, at one time or another, be served up to each of us over the course of our lifetimes.
Please don’t shy away from tasting the mouth-watering rainbow that life has to offer by way of emotional experiences.
Feel your feelings. They (and we) aren’t going to be here forever.