Human Feels-Normalizing Emotional Processing
Hello there human!
Thank you for existing. I hope these words give permission for you to feel what you feel in some small way. Thank you for reading.
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Before I processed the sadness, I felt the weight of it. For years, I felt the weight of it. The pit in my stomach, the tightness in my chest, the grip of my throat - the sadness took root everywhere in me. It had been there for so long that the heaviness of it felt comfortable and familiar. And even though it was so so heavy, the familiarity of it made it feel safe so I kept it. For years, I kept the sadness close - years of not feeling my feelings built up inside my body. It felt suffocating, I couldn't give my Self permission to cry, to weep, to roar, to scream.... to be human. A human who feels. I'm not going to go into the root of the sadness itself, that's a windy path, but I will state that while it has taken a bit of time, I now give my Self complete permission to feel how I feel. I will never again apologize for, deny, or shove down how I feel for anyone or anything. I will never steal from my Self the gift of being affected by life and allowing life to affect me. I am a human BEING, one who feels very deeply. I now realize this as a gift, it's been a long journey to get here. But, yes, it's a gift - such a gift.
I've always been very sensitive to... well everything. I wasn't taught how to give space to this sensitivity or process my feelings growing up. A lot of what I saw modeled by my upbringing, society, and my experience as a "perfect ballerina" was to keep up the facade that I was only ever in one state of being, and that state of being was "good". Anything besides "good" didn't seem to have room in the conversation. I found the people around me didn't have the language or tools to handle the honesty of, "I feel really sad, I don't know why, by all of it, and that makes me even sadder." I felt alienated in how experienced reality through feeling, in response to this I started to store it all inside of me. I said "good" when I didn't mean it, I smiled, when my heart felt heavy, so that no one would have to feel uncomfortable by my feelings. I became a storage unit of all that was unprocessed, I stifled it all to stay agreeable. I saw that hiding your Self away when experiencing less socially acceptable feelings was apparently the only option. I saw that posting photos on social media of me smiling when my heart was weeping got me more likes - I felt validated in my facade, while in the meantime I was withholding my own humanity away from my Self. If I posted a video of me screaming, crying, or howling - I might not be accepted, liked, or loved. If I admitted the depth of my sadness to my Self or the world would I still be a part of the tribe? Everything around me was telling me otherwise which made me feel even more alone in how I was experiencing life. Even after I intellectually understood the root of the sadness, I still hadn't felt it. I didn't know how. I had been shoving it all down for so long, I didn't know where to begin. There was so much to untangle.
I found emotional release breathwork in a moment of desperation. A "something's gotta change" moment if you will. The teacher mentioned that a lot could and would come up and out, I defiantly told my Self, "not me, I'm someone who keeps it together." It only took 5 minutes of the active breathwork for the tears to come rushing down. They didn't stop, wouldn't stop - I couldn't "pull it together" like usual, so I surrendered to it. I said yes to the sadness and the tears continued. I said yes to the grief, the tears continued. They continued for the rest of the 40 minutes of active breath. If I'm being honest, they are still continuing to this day... every time I do breathwork, I'm always the one crying. It takes a long time to process years of stifled emotion, but I'm getting there. I feel lighter, the sadness feels more malleable now. The sadness has also been a gateway to my purpose and the work I'm here to hold space for. I understand this now.
I'm writing this to all humans out there, especially if you're highly sensitive, I am with you in the feeling of it all. It is normal, healthy, and a gift to feel.
To feel is to be alive.
To feel is to understand.
To feel is to experience the totality of life.
Emotions are energy in motion, they are transient states. I am not the sadness, but the sadness is passing through me. This is okay, this is a natural response to processing life experience. I don't overidentify with the emotion or shove it down, but I do allow it. Yes to the sadness. I now know that the depth to which I allow my Self to experience the grief is the depth to which I'm also allowing my Self to experience joy. I cry now with the feeling of open arms. I communicate how I'm feeling and have normalized that I will always be the first one to cry, to be vulnerable and do the work in public, and to say "sadness is passing through me and it feels really heavy today". This has liberated me by allowing me to be with my Self and the ever-changing states of me. I will not become a storehouse for unprocessed life, I will feel it and I will process it. I will let it impact me, connect me to the depth of me, and let it shift how I show up in the world. I will not project unprocessed feeling onto anyone or anything, I will feel it. I will feel it all. I want life to touch me, move me, open me. Yes to the days that are deep wells of sadness reminding me what it means to really care about something. Yes to the days of anger that reignite my spirit and give me the tenacity and fire to keep going. Yes to the joy that feels like lightness of hope in my bones. Yes to it all.
I'm hoping we can start to normalize the full spectrum of human emotion by being honest with and processing our own feelings first. Not only for us but also to be able to hold space this kind of space for others. It's taken time, patience, effort, and probably many lifetimes of tears - but I now understand how to feel. I now say with a great sense of respect and honor that I am one who feels. Thank goodness I feel this deeply, it has saved me and reminded me why I'm here. Hallelujah to the lifetimes of tears and the sweet cradling of joy that reminds me that I'm alive.
Here's to fully feeling,
Love you!
Bree
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If you don't know where to begin and feeling and processing emotion seems challenging- I would love to hold space for you. I currently offer emotional release breathwork sessions. These privates are a safe container to release what wants to be unearthed within you. Feelings are the language of the body. The active breathwork technique assists in bypassing the mind (which tends to intellectualize and analyze) to drop into the body & let the body do the processing that it needs to do. In essence, knowing why you're sad and feeling your sadness are two different things. You can know the root of something but still be holding onto the residual energy of it in your body. It is a great honor to share something that has helped me move through it all. If you're interested in scheduling a private breathwork session with me, feel free to reach out to bree@claritycalm.com or schedule here.
Below is a short video I made that touches our relationship with processing emotions. Thanks for your patience as I attempt to touch on the things that used to be too hard to talk about, I'm still working on vocalizing them. I hope it's useful.
With love,
Bree
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READ & LISTEN
"The relationship between body, mind, and spirit is that the body reflects what is held in mind, which in turn reflects one’s spiritual position. It is necessary to know where all human experience takes place because if we address that level, we will be addressing the most powerful level. If the physical is the consequence of the mental, and the mental is the consequence of the spiritual, then we need to address it in the area called consciousness."
Healing and Recovery by David Hawkins
"“Do not let anything that happens in life be important enough that you’re willing to close your heart over it.”
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
This podcast with my teacher Erin Telford was powerful.