How Feeling My Feelings Has Changed My Life....
Content
Fearing the Rabbit Hole of Feelings...
When you've been learning about feelings and you have this light bulb go off in your head and it starts to click. I had feared feelings most of my life, and I had really learned how to "think" about them, "analyze" them, but I never really allowed myself to "feel" them, because if I did, I would go down this rabbit hole and I having been there before, I was scared that at some point, I'd not be able to find my way out.
Three things I learned I was doing "wrong" when it came to feeling my feelings:
1. If your thinking about feeling your feelings, you're not really feeling them. Your in your head and not in a state of feeling.
2. Analyzing the "why" you feel the way you do. Analyzing the "why" or "what" the feeling is, is in your head, again, thinking about your feelings, not feeling them.
3. Holding a judgment about your feelings. Judging them is not beneficial either, it keeps you in your head, versus allowing yourself to feel them, regardless of what you may think about certain feelings.
The day it clicked...
I was having an amazing day! Everything was going perfectly and then I got a phone call! The kind you don’t necessarily want to get or can’t prepare for. No, nobody died, yet it was my son in a panic, and I instantly stepped into “mom mode” wanting to fix it. I immediately realized what I was doing, stepped back and asked him, how can I support you? We ended the call without an exact decision being made.
I hung up, called my mom, asking for prayers and intentions that it worked out for his greatest good. That’s what I do when I need to do something and I’m not quite sure what to do. I call my mom and ask for prayers, yet something shifted today. Today I asked for those things, yet I also asked for clarity and a solution to present itself. I hung up.
Joshua had just walked in the door as I hung up, and in that moment, I started to feel my feelings, I burst into tears. I’m not sure what exactly he was thinking, he just knew I was distressed and wanted to calm me down. I was angry, sad, scared and he wasn’t allowing me to feel it. For the first time in my life, I looked at him and said, I understand what you’re saying, I appreciate why you’re saying it, but I need to feel my f'ing feelings right now, please allow me to do that. (Side note: I had listened to a podcast earlier in the day about Jeanne having a temper tantrum, and then moving on) He backed off, and I fully allowed myself to feel my feelings. I would honestly say that they moved through me in about 15 minutes.
Then a solution presented itself and I had clarity. By the end of the discussion and through follow up texts, he asked me to make a phone call. It was a situation that we both felt we had no control over, yet he offered the solution of who to call. I made the phone call, which then led to him also making a phone call. We took an action step that felt good and came from inspiration, which is totally different than desperation. He had to wait to get the information he needed by calling back at a certain time. He did and was given the perfect solution. Whether he chooses it, is totally up to him, as I understand why he is afraid to follow through. I told him that only he can decide, yet no matter what he decides, I love him and it will all work out. I also asked him to trust that it would work out perfectly based on the information he was given and that he wouldn’t have to do something that he didn’t want to do.
Now that the solution was presented, and I had felt my feelings, I hit a brick wall...just meaning that I needed to take a nap.
When I laid down, my brain was still running a little bit, yet I closed my eyes and just let my brain process what it needed to process without judgment. Here's where my title comes from, I had the thoughts that in the past, I didn’t really understand what I understand now, that I didn’t want to Go Down the Rabbit Hole! For me the rabbit hole of feelings was where I would slip into a depression and I went back to my sophomore year of high school when I was in the rabbit hole and contemplated suicide. I was in counseling at the time, and of course she talked me off the ledge, yet I didn’t really feel my feelings then either. I looked at them from the outside, as if they were someone else’s feelings.
Let’s fast forward to I think I was 22 (all of this happened so fast as I was laying there with my eyes closed) and I remembered OD’ing! They were a prescription, not that it matters, yet they were. I had something at the time that I thought was traumatic, was physically and emotionally exhausted, and wanted rest...I most definitely didn’t want to feel my feelings. So, my prescription was meant to help me sleep, so I took more so I could really sleep. Not knowing at the time that I would have gone to sleep forever. I was angry, sad and hurt when all of this occurred, I just didn’t know how to feel my feelings. I was supposed to be strong.
Throughout my life I have slipped into the rabbit hole because I didn’t understand or know, or give myself permission to feel my feelings, I was too busy thinking about how I felt, versus actually feeling.
Now I understand, or have more clarity what it means to feel my feelings. It’s not thinking about how I feel, as I feel that’s actually trying to control my feelings, yet allowing myself to truly feel my feelings on all levels. By doing this, I’m not thinking and I’m not slipping into the rabbit hole of thinking about them and to my surprise and delight, as I have been practicing this a lot this last year, the more I surrender to how I feel versus analyzing or thinking or figuring out why I feel what I’m feeling, they move through my body and out so much faster. By giving myself the permission to feel whatever it is, brings me to clarity and calm so much faster now.
I can truly say, I love feeling my feelings now. I didn’t say it’s always fun, yet it’s easier now and I know that I have left the rabbit hole behind. I come out the other side calm and solutions present themselves because I’ve opened up to them.
How do you feel about feeling your feelings? Do you allow yourself to feel them? Are you thinking about feeling them? Are you analyzing why you feel the way you do? What if you just allowed yourself to feel how you feel?