Feeling the Feels

Sep 24

Sometimes (most of the times) we overcomplicate things — instead of searching for solutions outside of ourselves, we simply need to feel what we feel

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I’ve noticed lately that my feelings have feelings. Maybe you can relate?

This revelation coming from someone who grew up with the belief system that they weren’t something to be felt, they were something to be hidden. Well, at least that’s how the younger version of me processed it when Dad looked at my eyes pooling with tears ready to roll down my cheeks and said, “stop that crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Oh…seventies parenting!

The irony is that he was a very sentimental, mushy guy with a big heart but in that childhood home of ours, there wasn’t room for all of our feels, especially those from a weepy kid. So, it was a safer and more prudent strategy to figure out how to shove them away.

And subconsciously shove them away I did for decades (or at least I thought I did). That is until they emerged sideways in a different form making me appear erratic, dramatic and dare I say…emotional.

Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a slam on my parents or a sad recounting of my childhood. They were lovely people… ‘doing the best they could with what they had been given’. I’m not trying to make excuses for the aspects of nurturing that I needed and didn’t receive, but I’d bet no one ever asked them how they were feeling when they were growing up either.

Though our home wasn’t very demonstrative physically, in action or with words — hugs and I love you’s were scarce — I never actually questioned being loved. I did grow to question being seen or understood and so my true life journey began.

My spirit wanted hugs and I love you’s. She wanted to be able to cry and communicate those sentiments.

That said, I don’t lament and linger in my past (and I’ve got quite a lot of past). Thank God, I see it all very differently now. None of us (my parents included) were taught the art of conversation in the feelings department and we were left to our own devices — to figure things out the hard and often messy way.

Thus began the archeological dig of my life — the re-assemblage of the pieces and parts, seeing the meaning and significance of the journey, identifying the lessons and mining for the gold — and most of all, mitigating the suffering.

When my life started to shift into this Best Self mindset, when I began to search for meaning in the mess determined to use my life events instead of being used by them — I ceased from punishing myself for all the missteps I had taken previously. My nervous system began to calm and my spirit began to trust — trust that I would figure always things out and find my way.

Life is a treasure trove of triggers there for the taking. I consciously work each day to show up better today than yesterday (some days more successfully that others for sure). Some days I take things personally, feel defeated or hurt.

The other day I was having a session with a coaching client who shared that she had been feeling depressed. I surprised her when I said, “OK, you’ve identified it, called it out…and that’s awesome, but you also don’t need to rush out of it.” Of course, I don’t want her to take up permanent residency there, but we can’t shove, force, manipulate our feelings away. That doesn’t make them go anywhere or heal them…that hides them and gives them the breeding ground they want to do further damage.

There are a lot of buzz words out there these days. I refer to them as ‘woke spoke’. It seems like we are all supposed to be out there erecting boundaries, cutting energetic cords, releasing our ancestor’s baggage, etc., etc., etc. That feels like a lot of work and struggle. And while all those modalities have merit and tremendous healing power — they in themselves won’t solve the problem.

Use your pain, your feelings, your wounds, your past. When stung, ask it, what are you trying to reveal to me? What is it that I need to see? What have I left unaddressed? How is it here to help me?

When we have an altercation with someone, we have been conditioned to make it about the other person. It’s not about the other person, it’s about you (even if they’ve behaved badly). You don’t control them. You can’t make them behave better. You can’t save them or fix them or change them into something you think they should be (that’s their work, their life lesson). And lest I remind you, you are your own full-time job (trust me I know). I half-jokingly say, I’ll be working the rest of my life!

It’s so hard not to take things personally when relationships don’t work out or fall off course. It’s hard not to gather evidence to support your theories about why they are wrong / why you are right. It’s hard not to gossip about it to another and enlist their support on ‘your’ team — to feel validated or backed up. But all this does is keep us stuck in the conflict — stuck in all the emotions we certainly don’t want to be stuck in.

And it all circles back to not being able to communicate clearly. For example, all of that stuffing away of feelings for me not only robbed me of the practice of expressing myself — it distanced me from even understanding what I was feeling — why I was hurt, upset, sad, afraid, etc.

Sure, we need boundaries and to give ourselves permission to walk away, end things or interact differently all together. But what we really need is to give voice to our feelings, to validate them and hug them.

And if that means sitting in emotions like depression, then sit in it. Witness it. Don’t let it define you or become your forever place. But you can’t self-medicate or deny it away.

My feelings get hurt — and I don’t like it any more than the next person. But I have also come to trust that it’s here to reveal something to me about me (maybe something I need to clean-up, maybe something it is time to walk away from, maybe a new path forward). When I stay angry at someone, they take up space in my essence, dull my sparkle and hurt me more. I hurt me more.

Conflict is hard. I’d like to say I never find myself in any of it, but I’m as human as the next person. When I don’t express myself in the moment, I harbor it and it grows…then watch out! But that only results in the need for a clean-up crew afterwards.

Have a disagreement with someone…

Get triggered by someone…

Just completely irritated and at your wit’s end witnessing the behavior of someone…

Feeling drained, used, or taken advantage of by someone….

Newsflash: it has nothing to do with them…everything to do with you.

This truth-telling isn’t for the faint of heart, but it is for the wise, the heart-centered, the dreamers and lovers and believers in possibility, those who want to become their Best Selves. Those who want to reach forward and heal backwards.

We’ve all got our stories that have led to here — some more regrettable than others, some we’d rather hide and pretend never happened. We’ve got our wounds and our sadness. But we also get to decide what we are going to do with it all. Are we going to allow those events to define us or to serve as steppingstones guiding us to become more of us?

Doesn’t the latter sound better? Feelings are teachers just pointing us in the right direction. So go ahead…feel the feels. Allow them to roll over you, sit with you and then carry on along the way.

Let them pass…and maybe we should simply thank them and let them go.

Are you stuck in any feelings that need to be reframed and released? Please share in the comments below.

Bill Miles