All the feels
I hope you never feel empty. I hope you never feel nothing, because feeling nothing is probably one of the worst things that you could ever go through. Feeling any unpleasant emotion even if it’s a sad one or a painful one is still better than not feeling anything at all.
I know because I have been there…
When we do not want to feel a certain emotion, we tend to repress it. Pushing it down, bury it, and pretend it’s never there. I did that for a period of time. Not wanting to feel the pain of heartache, I suppressed the emotion of sadness altogether. During the time of suppressing my sadness, I felt like I was being strong. I felt like I was okay, but I wasn’t.
Denying pain turned out leading to apathy and I no longer know what I was missing. I didn’t feel real emotions for quite some time without even realizing it. Only the surface level feelings that lingered for only some minutes. It was feeling numb all the time — nothing made me mad, nothing upset me, and nothing actually moved or touched me from the inside anymore.
I felt like I couldn’t cry anymore. I couldn’t laugh my heart out, and I never lost my temper anymore; I just ended up feeling so drained all the time.
Emotion is an all-or-nothing game. If we suppress our unpleasant feelings, we suppress everything.
Until one day, those hidden feelings came crashing to the surface. The dull, persistent pain of heartache I avoided for so long had returned. Hitting me like a tidal wave and stuck around for weeks. I resisted the urge to let the emotion take over, but I was frustrated with its persistence. Then I finally came to a realization about how much damage I had been doing to myself. I thought it was how I could seemingly get by and the cure for my pain. Never did I know it was about practicing self-acceptance. Accepting that all the feels came for a reason.
That time felt like another hell. I couldn’t even control my tears while I was on a packed bus in rush-hour. And that was when I understood that numbing myself is not healing. Those hidden emotions are not gone, it’s buried under the surface and waiting to be set free. And so I become trapped in a cycle with the same unresolved trauma, never moving forward.
I then stop trying to distract myself from feeling. I learn to acknowledge and process my emotions day by day by writing it in a daily journal before going to bed. Revisiting each emotion I consciously and unconsciously feel that day. Revoking each thought I consciously and unconsciously suppress that day. So it’s not about changing how I feel. I can only learn the lesson if I let them in, sit with them, and listen to them patiently…
By the time I let myself feel, healing becomes tangible, feasible, and within my reach. The next time I start feeling overwhelmed with a potentially unpleasant feeling, I promise I will not fight them. Experiencing sadness, worry, or guilt does not mean I am falling apart. It’s a part of being human.
I have forgiven myself for not doing so sooner. But it’s okay. It’s not too late. It never was.
If you are feeling numb right now, believe me, it won’t be forever. That feeling will go away eventually, but you might as well help it along. You might as well make an effort to save yourself.
I chose to pick myself back up and let myself feel. And I hope you too…
