feeling
if you are an avoidant like me, when you're faced with unpleasant feelings, your first, primal instinct is to escape them.
like our ancestors ran from wolves, albeit maybe unsuccessfully, but i'm sure they did.
because, in the name of survival, we need a survival instinct. otherwise, what are we left with?
fear is the most powerful feeling of all, and interestingly enough is the most powerful tool for cult leaders.
why? because with fear inside of you, things get a little less rational. your amygdala has the power to override your frontal cortex (the part of you that thinks things through)
fear is also what leaves a lot of us feeling stuck in today's world.
we can't get rid of it, and it's unlikely you would want to. it has a role, and an important one.
without fear, real, valuable suspicions would never be made, such as whether you recognize that “bank rep” over the phone is a scammer or not.
or how we recognize, maybe we shouldn't go near that homeless dude who has a suspicious amount of unnatural energy.
suspicions and fears are not always bad. in fact, even today, sometimes they are still crucial to our survival.
i've learned more recently how important it is to accept feelings for what they are. i used to think i was already doing this, and yet i was running from all of them.
i was running from joy, and i was running from fear. i ran from sadness, and shame, and guilt. i numbed myself with whatever i could find, in hopes that maybe these feelings would go away.
i made myself empty. i created the void where my feelings were supposed to go. i taught myself to push them aside and pretend they aren't there.
but that's no way to live. we're emotional beings. we need to feel to be. and if we cannot feel, then we cannot be.
plus, what is life without a full range of emotions? it's awfully dull without feeling, and claustrophobic when you try and pretend those that exist don't.
next time you feel upset, don't push it away. let yourself be upset, seriously.
say to yourself: “i'm upset. and i'm allowed to be.”
"i wanna be."
think about why you're upset. think about where you feel it in your body. notice it.
then, sit with the feeling. if it's uncomfortable, even better. slowly, you'll train yourself emotions aren't actually bad.
they also aren't good. they just are.
- anger
- sadness
- happiness
- fear
- pleasure
- love
- disgust
- guilt
here are several emotions. as you were reading through them, you probably decided which ones you did, and didn't like.
this bias is okay. we're allowed to favor some states more than others, and prefer them.
however, what may actually benefit you, is learning to accept them. regardless of bias.
we all feel things, and they area generally internal physical chemical reactions, nothing more, nothing less.
just the brain observing and firing different hormones and chemicals based on what it instinctively thinks it should do
to enforce this idea of "emotions are just emotions, and nothing more", consider fear
generally, we believe fear to be unwanted, and it feels uncomfortable
why then, do horror movies exist? why are haunted houses so damn popular?
because maybe the discomfort we feel from trying to push feelings away is what makes them uncomfortable