Last month, my Dad went into hospital for an operation…and I felt a whole range of feelings – anxiety, stress, irritation, fear, love, then relief, joy and exhaustion when it was all over and it went well. Now if I had tried to express those emotions at the time I felt them, like a toddler does, it would have been entirely inappropriate, and made life awkward and unpleasant for the people around me!
Much as I wanted to fly into a tantrum in the middle of the hospital while Dad was waiting hours for a bed, it wouldn’t have helped anyone. And this is what we so often do, we swallow our anger, our fear, our irritation, our impatience, our hurt, our upset, our outrage, our pain. Even our delight, our joy, our love, our wonder at life don’t get to be fully expressed too often – we even hold that in, not wanting to be embarrassed or appear childish or trying to look cool or some other excuse not to fully experience our joy.
Where does all this feeling go? Negative emotion, if it is not expressed, goes nowhere, it stays in our body, mind and heart, slowly poisoning us, making our heart hurt, making us want to scream over the sheer frustration of not being able to express ourselves. Sometimes this bursts out of us in a totally uncontrolled way as road-rage or trolley rage. Positive emotion, if unexpressed, smothers the joyful, playful inner child and we forget how to feel wonder, joy, playfulness, delight.
So this month, I want you to feel how you feel. In a safe way. If you feel you need it, get professional help to help you deal with any super strong feelings of guilt, grief or rage. For the rest of us, we’re just going to notice what we’re feeling, let a little more feeling show, and play with some techniques for feeling what we feel each day – writing, singing/chanting, moving.
Are you going to join me? Leave me a comment and let me know…and as ever, over on the Donnaonthebeach facebook and twitter pages, I’ll be giving you daily reminders to feel how you feel!
With love
Donna.x
Comments
16 responses to “Announcing the September Daily Practice: Feel How You Feel”
That’s beautiful Vanessa – it’s such a good point that Mother Earth is there for us to transmute that energy…xx
So true! It’s so important to give ourselves permission to feel the way we feel. There’s no wrong way to feel about something, only an inappropriate expression of that feeling. I hold on far too much to my stress and anxiety, my fear and sadness. I think I have a way of letting it all go now, to go outside and ground myself in Mother Earth. Amazing how she can take all that negative energy and transform it into something beautiful! Love and light xx
Thanks Adrienne! I started out with road rage, but then trolley rage was funnier! 😀 You’ll see it all the time now you know about it!!! xx
Love the September practice, Donna! Not allowing our natural feelings to be, whether positive or negative – and even if we do not act on them in the moment, is just another way that we judge ourselves harshly. What a great practice – to spend a month just allowing what we feel to be and accepting our feelings and ourselves for who and what we are.
Also, I had to giggle at ‘the term trolley rage’, simply because I have never heard that one before. 🙂
Thanks Jo – exactly. Suppressed positive emotion leads to a serious lack of mojo! xx
Oh yeah, it’s such a strange ‘rule’ to live by isn’t it? So we end up feeling that we’re the only ones feeling these ‘unfashionable’ emotions and feel worse. It’s a mad world! May you feel every part of your new journey…and enjoy all of the emotions! xxx
Yes, I think it’s vital when you’re dealing with something so painful…such a better way to cope than suppressing it all. Love to you Tanja. xxxx
Wise therapist! Thank you Arwen! xx
Absolutely Sue – I suspect that’s why the ‘pain body’ phenomena exists, because people don’t allow themselves to feel – like it’s bad, or wrong, or naughty to be human! xx
Absolutely Sue – I am very excitable and I love to express positive emotion, and so many people suppress it! It’s so sad!
What a wonderful gift to yourself…ooh, I feel another daily practice coming on! Love it!
xxx
Lovely post and so great that you talk about both positive and negative feelings as lack of expression of either can lead to being blocked in various areas of life. I really enjoyed this reminder, thanks ♥
Excellent way of saying it all. It is one of those things we’ve been told for a long time. “Don’t show your emotions”. Especially if they aren’t the ones other people are supposed to see on the outside.
I’m living a lot of emotions right now, with a move from the Big Island to Maui and everything changing. New creation. There is sadness, pain, and yet there is happiness and joy and the chance to really be me!
Great post, Donna! Allowing myself to feel whatever was there for me was actually a MAJOR key to dealing with my Dad’s battle with terminal cancer over the past year.
I’ve found in the past that if I let myself feel whatever’s there, it arises and then passes – it’s only when I try to fight what I’m feeling: suppressing it or making myself wrong – that the feeling persists.
I wrote a guest post about my overall experiences during Dad’s illness over on one of my client’s blogs, and this was one of the four key strategies I highlighted.
Blessings
TANJA
A very good thing and one I learned from a terrific therapist. Just allow the emotion then move on. Thanks for a great reminder, Donna.
I enjoyed yoru post, Donna. It tracks with the Eckhart Tolle I am re-studying right now about being an observer of our emotions and the effects they have on the body – the creation of the huge pain body we then carry around that causes (over-) reaction the next time around. Good stuff. Keep it coming!!
Thanks so much for this. I’m especially grateful that you mention expressing the positive emotions. We work so hard on dealing with the negative, and honoring the positive is so important as well.
I’ve been gifting myself with music that makes me sing and dance every day. Does wonders!
Love and light,
Sue