Feel The Funk

Allowing yourself to feel what you feel

Sometimes you just have to feel the funk. As a matter of fact, there’s truly only one way out of it and it’s not around it — it’s through it. Life isn’t about quick fixes, though that’s the message mainstream media likes to sell us. There’s a cure-all for whatever ails us only a stone’s throw away. So then we download a message that we just need to get over things. And then we get really good at practicing that.Unfortunately, bypassing isn’t a get-free pass. Sidestepping our feelings is a form of denial…and denial doesn’t make things magically disappear. We can become pretty clever in this arena — especially anyone who has a self-empowerment bookshelf that looks anything like mine. We can be the worst offenders because we think we can turn to one of our mantras, passages, card decks, candles, podcasts, rituals, etc. to absolve us of the experience – to simply divert our attention and make us feel better in the moment, so we can carry on business as usual.It might make us feel better temporarily — and while that counts for something, it doesn’t touch the core situation unfolding. It only buries it another layer deeper.The other morning I woke up with an energetic black cloud over my head. I couldn’t pinpoint the cause — nothing of significance had occurred, no dramatic outbursts, altercations or disappointments. In fact, the sky above me was crystal clear, birds were chirping and yet, I felt the funk.I initiated the inner dialog – So what’s up? What’s going down here? Where’s the inner sunshine?  No response.No real inspiration.No intuitive hits.Earlier that morning after tiptoeing out of bed in the dark and with coffee in hand and heading to my office – I received a text from downstairs, “Good Morning. The dog just threw up on the bedroom carpet.” F*&K! But that wasn’t it, that wasn’t the culprit that had toppled my joy — though it certainly didn’t help things.There’s a distinction between dodging our emotions and sitting with them. My initial reaction was to jump to action — to the business of feeling better. I’m usually pretty good at identifying what’s going on and implementing the tools from my tool chest. But, alas that morning – there wasn’t anything to fix. I didn’t know why I was blue and frankly that made me crankier.Maybe our emotional healing doesn’t happen in our time, but rather in real time. It got me thinking that instead of expending all of this effort and energy to get over it, I should instead feel it, observe it, experience it…and just be.We are not broken – we are simply human and to be human is to feel. Perhaps in my stillness, my emotions had a moment to catch up with me. Life isn’t about muscling through our experiences. Life is about experiencing our experiences. And I don’t think we are intended to edit those experiences only to repackage them as something inauthentic and disingenuous to what we are truly feeling.Having your go-to feel better routines is an act of self-care and self-love, but mustn’t be disguised as the fix. I had already fallen down the rabbit hole that morning – so of course, everywhere I looked in the house I saw flaws: scuffed walls that needed painting, windows that needed cleaning, carpets that needed replacing and on and on it went. Clearly, what I was seeing was an energetic match to what I was feeling. So I decided to walk outside to water my flowers (and even they looked sad). But with my feet in the grass, watering can in hand — I connected to something else. It didn’t solve the problems of the world, but it helped me shift my energy and create a space to quiet the noise in my head. When we shift our energy we can start to realign.Don’t play dodge ball with your emotional self. Allow yourself to feel what you feel. For example, I wasn’t really in the mood to talk — so I didn’t talk. We know what to do for ourselves in those moments. We don’t have to have all the answers, but we can love ourselves enough to say, It’s OK, it’s safe to feel it. I’m sure its message will be revealed. Let’s not confuse self-care with solutions. It is the gateway, not the destination.What can you do to create space for yourself to feel what is unfolding around you?

• Embrace it: Name it, claim it and let it reveal itself.
• Slow down: Don’t rush to ‘fix’ anything. Fixing can be code for burying it away.
• Own it: Don’t overcomplicate your emotions. Our feelings are basic. When we feel we need to explain them we repackage them. Call it like it is.
• Let go: Relinquish the timeline. Stop being so bossy. We can’t put healing on the calendar with a deadline.
• Be you: When we can begin to share what we are going through in a genuine way, we can create a space for others to do the same. The next time someone asks you, “How are you?” — consider telling the truth.

What do you do when you start to feel the funk?What did I do? I turned to what I love, and began to write. Writing didn’t make the funk disappear into thin air, but it did bring forth a more grounded me. And with our feet on the ground, we can connect to our humanness in all it’s imperfectly perfect, funky glory.‘Cause at the end of the day — feeling the funk is a part of the ride. To be your best self means to connect to all pieces, parts and foibles — your beautiful, human self.