“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
– Rumi
For as accepting as I’ve become of my shortcomings, one thing I still find difficult is admitting to my feelings. Years of mistrusting yourself does a number on you.
I have always been a sensitive person. I readily empathize. I cry five seconds within seeing a sad commercial. I was so uncomfortable about how affected I got over them that whenever a UNICEF or PETA commercial came on, I would make a mad dash to change the channel. Unfortunately, the world has not always been an understanding space for the amount of sensitivity I had. I’ve learned to conceal my feelings so much so that I think I’ve reached the point where I’m not even sure if or when I’m expressing them appropriately. I always question whether I’m “being too much” or “not enough”.
I think to some extent, keeping your emotions at bay is rational. We can’t always be making feeling-based decisions, or the world would be an impulsive mess. But in my case, I think my need to have control over my emotions comes from a place of fear. And fear is a low energy vibration.
There’s a reason why overanalyzing is such a painful experience. It’s a semblance of control over things you really have no control over. I recently heard on a podcast that the concept of “overthinking” actually is a result of not having fully formed thoughts about a subject. Sometimes it’s because we don’t have a good grasp of the information we have available. Often, it’s because the things we overthink about have some element of subjectivity. For instance, “Does he like me?” has probably shown up approximately 3429 times on my Google search history since the beginning of the Internet. No matter how many more times I Google that subjective question, I will never get an objective response. The only way is to ask each specific “he” (and even then, you still don’t know if he lyin’). That would involve letting go of the fear of not getting the response I want. And letting go of fear means opening up a path for my emotions to pass through. Scary ass shit tbh.
And yet the cost of not accepting your emotions, of not opening up, is that you don’t have full ownership over them. How you feel is at the mercy of whatever happens to you, and your feelings will manifest in unpredictable ways. Worse, you don’t allow a space to let all the good feels in. You can’t fully experience joy if you can’t discriminate it from sadness. You become numb in the moment. It’s only in retrospect that you will recognize what you missed; and living in the past is no way to live.
I often feel the need to justify my feelings, especially to myself (“I know it’s ridiculous that I’m sad about this but etc. etc.”). But whenever people I love seek comfort and tell me how they’re feeling, I know I would never judge whether they really need comfort or not; I just give it to them, because that’s what they’re seeking in that moment. I recognize what they’re feeling, acknowledge it, and encourage them to let it out. No rushing through the process and no judgment. That’s the grace I need to learn to give myself.
In the spirit of self-acceptance and openness, I’ll be real: I feel sad. It sucks. It’s painful, and I don’t quite know how to deal with it. But I know holding it in or masking it won’t make me feel better. So I’m going to stay open, let it all out for as long as I need to for however I need to, and then I can let it go. Because I know that once this inner storm has come and gone, there’ll be enough room for joy to enter.
Lives for Mondays. 