Learning How To Feel
It seems as if there are rules for how we are supposed to feel. An unwritten set of rules that guides acceptable exposition of feelings, good and bad. We try to fit into these cookie cutter molds, which don't prove to serve everyone, our emotions bubbling over the sides.
The hardest thing to understand is we don't have to play anyone else's game. We don't have to exist in that space created by someone else for their well being. We are in control of how much we feel, and if those feelings deem to be too much - they shouldn't because that's ok too.
Feeling “big” isn't something that comes easy, it has its own baggage that is already hard to unpack. This so-called evolution of society makes it seem like that is some kind of weakness, when the truth is it can be difficult to allow things to come to the surface.
There is no such thing as too much emotion. There is no such thing as too much passion, or too much creativity, or too many ideas. When we are emotional it's almost as if there is no right to feel strongly about something, regardless of how attached we are to it or how big a part it plays in our lives. Is it that we are being frowned upon, like feeling just about anything is not worth its weight in salt?
Society has decided that feelings make us weak, and even fragile. Being empathetic is somehow the last thing people want to accept about someone else. I don’t know when or how that happened but it has, and it’s jarring to learn that too.
Are you allowed to experience emotion, as long as you keep it to yourself?
There are these rules - no being extra or acting out. No crying for fear of being called emotional or too much, even if that is exactly what you are and there's nothing wrong with that. Most people expect you to swallow things, to handle them on your own, especially if it is inconvenient for you to share those emotions with them.
Learning how to feel shouldn't be something we are forced to do, learning how to accept should be.
