“What feels more than feeling?... Do feelings lose their feeling if they speak to a lack of feeling?... The worst injury is feeling you don’t belong so much to you-” - Claudia Rankine
Everyone has to deal with feelings all throughout their life. Feelings can be so simple yet so complicated, so natural yet so overwhelming. To feel can be one of the greatest things in the world but it can also be the worst thing we have to experience. Feeling too much can be troublesome but not feeling enough can be just as bad.
We all believe we understand our feelings because they are ours. Why wouldn’t we know what our own feelings are? Why wouldn’t we understand why we’re feeling our feelings? But not knowing what we’re feeling or why we’re feeling it can invoke new feelings by itself.
Sometimes we are forced to show feelings and told that we should be feeling a certain way. We’re told to not look emotionless. Other times we’re told to hide our feelings, that we shouldn’t be feeling a certain way. Now we need to look less emotional instead.
Other people can’t control what we’re feeling though, and neither can we. No matter how much you try to keep those feelings in check, you can’t do anything about them without fully feeling them. You’ll feel what you feel whether you like it or not. Your feelings cannot be commanded even by you.
To feel is a good thing, no matter how tough it might be. Though we might feel pressured by others to only feel certain feelings, we have to allow ourselves to feel whatever it is that we’re feeling. Some feelings might make you feel as if something heavy is on your chest, as if it’s hard to swallow, as if you can’t eat and you want to throw up instead. It’s not a surprise we might just want those feelings gone as soon as possible. Pretending that some of your feelings don’t exist will only make them hit harder later on. The only way to truly get rid of a feeling is to let yourself feel it and understand it first. Otherwise, they’ll always be there, always haunting you.