The art of living and feeling your feelings
There really is an art to living with feelings and emotions. So often we feel that we are plagued by our feelings, that we have little to no control over them. They are frustrating aspects to ourselves that we have to avoid at all costs if they aren’t welcome. If they are ones that make us feel good, then we will dampen them down, ignore them or worse - they become explosive.
A lot of this comes down to how we witnessed feelings when we were children. In fact nothing will show you the power of feelings and emotions quite like kids! They are literally balls of energetic feelings! If we were shown that feelings are not to be talked about, that they are inconvenient, that they must be ignored then that is what we will take with us into adulthood. The problem with this, we don’t know quite what to do with them. It can feel like we become our feelings, overwhelmed even.
If we grow up not fearing them, that we are shown how to live with them, to feel them and even get curious with them. Well, that changes the game. We learn that the world doesn’t end with a feeling. That we can keep moving through tough things. Even more important, our intuition is strong and we are confident.
I’ll be honest, you probably already know this if you’ve visited here before. I lived a life of roller coaster emotions. Big highs, big lows - not much time in the middle. I believed that I was my emotions and I would often get into trouble because I didn’t know how to live with them or contain them appropriately. So, how do you learn the art of living with your feelings?
KNOW THE WARNING LIGHTS
If your car flashes up with a warning light, you know that ignoring it isn’t going to end well. It’s kinda the same with our emotions. They are there to send you a message. Now, it doesn’t mean that this message is always correct, you need to learn how to decipher what’s going on. Then you get to make the call as to whether what your feeling is real or not (not to be mixed up with good or bad - there is no good or bad when it comes to mindfulness and feelings!).
GET ALL INDIANA JONES WITH THOSE FEELINGS
Learn how to decipher. This took me a little while but I’m now pretty confident. You will still feel all of the feelings, however, you won’t get consumed by them as time goes on and you keep flexing that muscle.
For me, it looks like a sweet combo of writing, meditation, a mindful shower and walking. Maybe not all at once (although that can be entirely appropriate with BIG feelings!) but knowing that you have a strategy will free your mind, again taking the sting out of those feelings that are flowing through you.
GET CLEAR, GET KIND
Know what you are feeling so that it doesn’t come up in the wrong way. What I mean by this is that you don’t get so overwhelmed by a feeling that you display your anger or frustration in the wrong direction. Again, I have absolutely been guilty of this and it’s really not helpful. Knowing that by identifying your feeling you can start to see the trigger. Another game changer.
Once you know what’s going on, don’t be mean to yourself. How would you talk to a friend or loved on that was going through this? Being mean and cruel to yourself will get you nowhere. Compassion and kindness though, these will make you stronger than you’d ever believe possible.
KNOW WHEN TO HOLD THEM, KNOW WHEN TO FOLD
Feelings are like ocean waves. They rise, crest and recede throughout the day. They mind-blowing part, is that they last for 90 seconds! After that, we are triggering ourselves to keep reliving that feeling until we are exhausted by it. Sound familiar?
By giving yourself a bit of distance (this is done by simply identifying the feeling) you can then decide if you do really want to hold onto that feeling. Perhaps, you simply want to acknowledge it and let it go. Perhaps it’s acknowledging it, knowing that you then need to do something about it. You are in the driver’s seat, so use it.
Mindfulness. Conscious Living. Learning to live in the present moment. However you want to think about this, it’s about mastery. It’s learning how to be you. What feelings do you struggle with the most? What are they tricksters that you want to learn to tame?