A big part of my practice of, uh, trying to be nice to me, is letting myself have my feelings. Recognizing my emotions, and feeling them as much as I can instead of distracting myself or engaging with ineffective comforts like food or movies or any number of other things.
Sometimes, I can’t tell which feelings are which. Or if I can tell what they are, I can’t recognize them when I’m actually feeling them. I swear that sometimes the line between dread and sadness and anger is, oh, about as big as a thread. So sometimes, I take my feelings to the dressing room, and we try on hats.
I ask my feelings:
“Does the sadness hat fit you?”
No; not quite. Too topical.
“How about embarassment?”
Mmmm; no. Perhaps it’s sort of like that, but it’s deeper, heavier.
“Fine. What about joy?”
Uh, no. Not even close. You’re way off track now. You know what hat’s going to fit. Just let yourself admit it.
“Wait, does sorrow fit you? Could you be Sorrow?”
Yes, darling. That’s the one. There you are now. That’s just the hat for me.
. . .
And now that I’ve found the right hat for that deep heaviness behind my breastbone, a whole hatbox (if you will) of new questions comes forth:
Why on Earth am I feeling sorrow, of all things?
Who am I to feel sorrow, when the rest of the world is suffering so deeply?
And of course: How can I get rid of this feeling?
But those are all questions for another time. The first step is to find the right hat, plop myself down on a chaise lounge, and wear it. And sometimes the only way to find the right hat is to try on a whole lotta hats and see which one fits. You know?
6 Comments
I know.
Beautifully said.
Thank you.
As usual, beautifully written and I can totally relate.
Yeah, I do know.
It’s such a process, this whole “actually living and experiencing your life” thing.
Thanks for sharing. It’s helpful to remember we’re not alone.
Christa: Thank YOU!
Louise: Mwah. Miss you.
Melissa: I know, right? It’s totally way harder to actually experience things than they’d have you believe. Whoever “they” is.
Oh my, I KNOW. Yes! Figuring out the feeling takes time, and then what to do with it. I love this reminder that breaking it down into that first, (sometimes super-hard-to-swallow) chunk, is important – and actually necessary to the kindness part (who am *I* to feel this, I so get that!) Wonderful metaphor, thank you!
Wow, this is a really good way of looking at it. I have the same problem (often), and this is a good technique to use to untangle one’s thoughts and emotions and to also understand what’s going on in one’s head without berating oneself
(P.S. my blog is so new there’s really not a post or a picture yet. Please excuse lack of profile information. Am working on it!.)