The beauty of pain and why I stopped running from it

Embracing thy feelings

Hello, dearest reader, I hope you are having an amazing start of the week.

I am back with a new Newsletter to support you in your personal growth and creative journey. And today’s topic is how to feel thy feelings!! Because this is exactly what we weren’t taught

For as long as I remember, I’ve been a highly sensitive and emotional girly.

I feel so much that I feel the stuff that’s not even meant for me.

I’ve been called weak and too sensitive, a lot. By friends and family

For the longest time, I felt there is something wrong with me but as I grew older I started to see the positive aspects of sensitivity.

Like how empathetic I’m.

If a friend of mine is narrating their sob story instead of just listening I’m able to feel their feelings.

Isn’t that beautiful and magical?

And because of being able to feel their feels I’m able to show up from a place of grace.

Isn’t that uplifting and supportive?

I recently had a friend tell me “you are overly susceptible to the small things, both in a good and bad way. Good because it gives you empathy and openness to life and bad because you let it affect your whole being.”

I agree with him. The smallest of things hold the power to bring me joy as well as make me cry.

But it’s hard to find people like me, especially in real life where most people don’t notice or appreciate the smallest of things or cry over something silly.

However, I’m glad people like me exist online and more and more people today are encouraging each other to feel their feelings.

I’ve always cried and felt my feelings but ever since I started my healing journey 💝 back in 2021 I started to cry even more.

As I no longer felt shame in crying or felt as if there is something wrong with me.

I learned to sit with my feelings and honor all my emotions.

Not gonna lie this was hard work because nobody taught me to feel my pain, jealousy, insecurity, anger, or any of my feelings.

Instead, I was made to feel shame for my sensitivity. Was told crying makes you weak.

So it’s been a journey learning to feel my feelings, a liberating one I would say coz now that I am able to sit with my feelings I am less afraid of getting hurt.

The problem with suppressing emotions

Growing up I rarely saw my mother crying or resting or feeling her feelings.

She lived in consistent fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. In one phase she would always be shouting while in another she would self isolate, live in the past and laugh on her own.

I thought there is something wrong with that.

And their indeed was. But this way of living was/is normalized in the society.

I didn’t see people crying often. I saw them crying only on death 💀 or marriage as if we don’t feel hurt or pain on other days.

As if we need specific days to be who we are.

Because I had never seen these people crying. I witnessed their bitterness. The unconscious projections.

The constant pain, frustration, fear, and panic. The gossip. Anxiety. Overthinking. And strong emotional reactions.

Not gonna lie I do these too sometimes but now it’s getting less and less as I’m building a positive relationship with all my feelings including negative ones.

All the ways we try to avoid our feelings

As humans, we are scared of getting hurt and feeling pain. Our brain 🧠 tries to protect us from those hard uncomfy feelings through overthinking tendencies but too much overthinking causes chaos and stops us from living peacefully.

Here are all the ways we avoid feeling our feelings:

• By overthinking

• Through distractions

• Through productivity and work

• Through alcohol 🍺

I believe the world would be a better place if we as humans were taught to feel our feelings instead of just shrug them off through overworking and distractions.

Most people aren’t able to sit with their feelings for the same reason. They believe they don’t have time.

They prioritize hustle and work over their well-being.

What’s wrong with avoiding feelings?

Avoiding feelings makes them grow bigger and bigger and the smallest of things start making people lash out.

The smallest of struggles makes people overthink and these people start resisting the unknown and keep on creating the same cycle of toxicity and drama over and over again.

Chaos feels familiar. The drama feels comfortable.

Not only this, avoiding feelings makes people live in a sympathetic nervous system which is about survival.

In survival, our guards are on and we find situations that aren’t that difficult or painful or life-threatening.

Our cortisol level shoots and the part of our body responsible for rest and digest doesn’t work properly which in turn affects so many of our organs and is causing many health issues.

Why its essential to feel your feelings?

If you want to learn to live a life of peace and flow you need to learn to feel your feelings coz to resist the feels is to resist life itself.

Many people who are depressed and whose life feels lifeless actually aren’t able to feel their pain. They seek joy forgetting one cannot exist without the other.

To be able to feel good feelings you need to be open to feeling the opposite ones and develop neutrality within your body

And, what is life without feelings?

However, we haven’t been taught or given the privilege to feel our feelings for generations. We are conditioned for survival and learning to feel your feelings is a much-needed step in the evolution of our soul’s journey.

Tools to help feel your feelings

Because we aren’t taught to feel our feelings we find it overwhelming when the feelings visit us.

We feel as if we should be feeling the opposite of what we are feeling.

When we feel sad we resist sadness which in turn causes more sadness.

To feel your feelings is to accept the state you are in and acknowledge it with grace.

To feel your feelings is to accept all parts of you including the flawed self coz most often the parts of us that we try to hide from the world are in actuality hurt parts.

Here are some tools that I’ve found that have made me learn to feel my feelings easier:

• Journaling: I swear by it coz writing truly is free therapy. When you put your words on your paper you give yourself permission to be your witness and release negative feelings. Gratitude journaling and free writing is a very powerful form of journaling that I love investing my time in.

• Meditation: Meditation teaches non-judgment towards ourselves our thoughts and feelings. It creates space to help us be with our feelings instead of trying to resist them

• Art therapy: Art is incredibly healing as it fosters mindfulness and brings us joy. There are many types of art therapy you can try. One that has worked for me is mindful ink art which I came across through Instagram from Artist Harry Frost. Attaching a piece of his work. In mindful ink art, you feel very present and focus too much on the ink and lines which brings you a sense of peace and calmness within your body.

• Yoga: Yoga is another incredibly powerful healing modality that teaches us acceptance and love for our body and whole being. It teaches us to feel and release feeling stuck in different parts of our bodies.

Steps to feel your feelings

Here is the step by step process on how to sit with your feelings:

Step 1: Curiosity: Recognise that you are feeling something

Step 2: Compassion: Be kind and compassionate towards yourself around the feeling

Step 3: Acknowledging: Spend time to identify the emotion

Step 4: Acceptance: Naming the emotion and creating space for feeling it

Step 5: Sensation: Take note of where you are feeling it in your body

Step 6: Reason: Identify why you are feeling it

Journaling prompts to help you feel your feelings

1. What emotions are you currently experiencing write about each one of those

2. I feel most at peace when………….

3. Describe a time when you felt overwhelmed. How did you cope?

4. List three activities that help you manage stress

5. How do you typically respond to anger? How can you improve this?

6. How do you deal with feelings of sadness or depression

7. What emotion do you find most difficult to express and why?

8. I feel most misunderstood when..

9. What are the emotions you try to avoid? Why?

10. When was the last time you felt true joy what caused it?

Thank you for taking the time to read my Newsletter see you next week :)

Xoxo