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Part deux:
Mental Health Monday! Part two- feelings about feelings. Emily Nagoski in her book 'Come As You Are', which is ostensibly about sexuality but has great wisdom for anyone who ever has feelings about anything, pointed this out to me- what you feel often isn't what gets you into trouble; it's *how you feel* about your feelings. Your feelings are. Why they're there, what they're trying to tell you, these are good things to explore. We often are surprised by them, and we're surely inconvenienced by them. But how we react to them is something that's usually a lot more under our control than the feelings themselves. Do we treat them like demons or monsters to fight? Do we see them as proof that we're imperfect, broken and unlovable? Maybe instead we can treat them like children, or puppies, or chipmunks, or fairies, or some little creature that wants to tell you something. It wants you to listen to something, to pay attention to something. Feelings are messengers about what's going on with us. We can try to chase them away, to beat them down, or hide from them- or we can listen to what they have to say without judgement. We don't have to internalize the message they have as THE IMMUTABLE TRUTH, but we also are not well-served by hitting the messenger with a broomstick and telling it to fuck off. My anxiety sometimes is a nervous little dog, barking at every passing neighbor or leaf blowing across the yard- thank you for guarding my space, you jumpy little idiot- I love you, and I'll make sure we're safe. Sometimes that detachment from our feelings is what it takes. You are not your feelings, and you can stand apart from them, see them, learn what they're trying to tell you, accept them for what they are (internal messengers!), thank them, and do whatever needs doing with the information they've given you. Chemistry and circumstance may make the messengers scary, hard to not get sucked in, overwhelming. This is what the therapy and meds and meditation and all of that is for. You don't need to hate yourself for your feelings. You don't need to feel like you're a bad person because your messengers are hard to handle. The struggle to hear your messengers without getting engulfed in their story can be a really big challenge- if you can accept the feelings without judging yourself harshly for having them, you can let them flow through you and gather the information they want to convey without getting dragged into them. There's a million ways out there to do this. Today I added another tool to my toolbox and went to a yoga class. What tools do you have?
Mental Health Monday! Part two- feelings about feelings. Emily Nagoski in her book 'Come As You Are', which is ostensibly about sexuality but has great wisdom for anyone who ever has feelings about anything, pointed this out to me- what you feel often isn't what gets you into trouble; it's *how you feel* about your feelings. Your feelings are. Why they're there, what they're trying to tell you, these are good things to explore. We often are surprised by them, and we're surely inconvenienced by them. But how we react to them is something that's usually a lot more under our control than the feelings themselves. Do we treat them like demons or monsters to fight? Do we see them as proof that we're imperfect, broken and unlovable? Maybe instead we can treat them like children, or puppies, or chipmunks, or fairies, or some little creature that wants to tell you something. It wants you to listen to something, to pay attention to something. Feelings are messengers about what's going on with us. We can try to chase them away, to beat them down, or hide from them- or we can listen to what they have to say without judgement. We don't have to internalize the message they have as THE IMMUTABLE TRUTH, but we also are not well-served by hitting the messenger with a broomstick and telling it to fuck off. My anxiety sometimes is a nervous little dog, barking at every passing neighbor or leaf blowing across the yard- thank you for guarding my space, you jumpy little idiot- I love you, and I'll make sure we're safe. Sometimes that detachment from our feelings is what it takes. You are not your feelings, and you can stand apart from them, see them, learn what they're trying to tell you, accept them for what they are (internal messengers!), thank them, and do whatever needs doing with the information they've given you. Chemistry and circumstance may make the messengers scary, hard to not get sucked in, overwhelming. This is what the therapy and meds and meditation and all of that is for. You don't need to hate yourself for your feelings. You don't need to feel like you're a bad person because your messengers are hard to handle. The struggle to hear your messengers without getting engulfed in their story can be a really big challenge- if you can accept the feelings without judging yourself harshly for having them, you can let them flow through you and gather the information they want to convey without getting dragged into them. There's a million ways out there to do this. Today I added another tool to my toolbox and went to a yoga class. What tools do you have?
