Your Feelings Are Waiting for You

I’ve struggled with severe depression since childhood. It still comes in occasional waves but they're smaller and less frequent now than they were when I was younger.

A major difference today is how I engage with those feelings.

In the past, because I lacked the skills to self-regulate my intense feelings I would push them down because I didn’t know how else to deal with them. Though this avoidant behavior was trying to protect me at the time, the problem with pushing negative feelings down is that those feelings are still there; biding their time and growing underneath the surface.

I thought because they were quiet they went away, when in reality I just put earplugs in so I couldn’t hear them. Eventually that pressure needed a relief valve; whether it came out in its original form or morphed into something else.

This can look different for everyone. For me, it looked like intense bursts of anger followed by depressive spirals along with substance abuse and occasional self harm. I believed that these negative feelings were “bad” and needed to be fixed for me to be loveable. Now, I see that they just needed to be acknowledged and felt without trying to push them away.

Feelings are neither good nor bad; they’re information. I've been using the word feeling but a more accurate word would be emotion. Emotions aren't feelings. Emotions are the interpretation of a feeling. When we experience somatic stimulation, (a sensation in our body), our brains interpret the stimuli based on our internal biases and experiences and label it as an emotion.

This process happens incredibly fast and often unconsciously. 

As an example, a fluttering sensation in our stomach or tightness in our chest can often be interpreted as anxiousness. When the word or label anxiety is put on that feeling there is now a subset of beliefs about that word and ourselves that come into play and follow well-established patterns in our behavior and thoughts. This isn't to say that we don't experience anxiety or other emotions often, or that labels aren’t helpful.

This example is here to point out the difference between the somatic feeling and the emotional label we put on it.

When I labeled my negative feelings as “bad”, I fell into a trap of rationalizing and thinking through my feelings instead of actually experiencing them and connecting with what they were trying to tell me. As an analytical person I tried to solve my feelings through my thoughts. To my surprise, this didn't work the way I thought it would.

Feelings can’t be “solved” and even though I thought myself in circles, the feelings still persisted. I resigned myself that this was just how I was and things wouldn't get better.

Thankfully, I was wrong again.

Because I believed I could think my way to feeling better, I kept trying to find the right words and kept having the same patterns repeat themselves. It was a vicious and depressing cycle. Thankfully I was connected with some dear friends who practice various somatic therapies. They encouraged and supported me in feeling what I had been trying to think my way through.

I realized I had been trying to say the right thing instead of feel it.

I had learned how to talk spiritually, intelligently, and emotionally. My language sounded right but the feelings weren't there. I was still avoiding them because I was afraid.

What if they were too big for me to handle?

What if I didn't know what to do?

What if it hurt too much?

Would I be okay?

I said before that you can't “fix” feelings and that feelings are neither good nor bad. Feelings are often uncomfortable, but their purpose is to connect us with our body’s experience. I had been trying to push my feelings down instead of feeling what they were trying to tell me. Just like a small child that wants attention, my feelings had to get very loud for me to finally listen to them. When I did, I found that all that the feelings wanted was to be acknowledged.

They didn't need to be fixed, they just wanted to be felt without judgment.

You may have heard the cliche: “You have to feel it to heal it.” It’s one of those annoying phrases that became a cliche is because it's true. We are deeply feeling beings and we can't bypass those feelings and expect to be whole. We can say the right words, do the right things, and make it look like we have it all figured out but only we know if we're actually feeling what's in our experience.

No one can know that but you. There is nothing more spiritual than to be deeply, fully human and to experience the full range of feelings present in your body.

I feel that’s the whole point.