Feeling the Feelings You Don’t Want to Feel

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This past week, my youngest daughter moved away to college to begin her adult life.

I had grief, from ending a chapter of my own life with her. I had grief from losing her. I had pride in myself for a job well done. I felt fear for her being so far away. I also had joy and excitement for her in starting this new chapter.

Mostly, I had a lot of dark, not so pleasant feelings that needed to be felt.

It’s been about one week now, and I feel a sense of peace again.

I’m grateful to understand the process of sitting with my feelings and not trying to change them or pretend they aren’t there. I know feelings are energy in motion, and they must move.

Feelings are merely passing through. It’s when you try not to feel them or pretend they aren’t there, that they tend to linger way longer than you’d like them to. You bury yourself in your work, you gaze for hours at screens, you feed yourself whatever addiction makes you feel nothing, so you don’t have to feel it. But alas, the feelings are still there.

Emotions are not meant to be held in and hidden. They are energies traveling through, like any other feeling in your body. Like a sneeze, a cough, or a fart. Perhaps slightly less pleasant – perhaps more.

When grief is moving through you, it can feel like a fog has settled in, but like any fog, it does clear eventually. And that’s what’s important to remember. I think sometimes the hardest part about being in a dark state, is the fear that it will never end. Sadness doesn’t have to be a permanent state.

(Please understand that I am not speaking of depression in this post, which can be for various unknown reasons and often needs medical treatment. If you believe you are depressed, I encourage you to seek out medical treatment.)

When it comes to grief, we must feel it and be with it. And it can take time, but it will take less time to move through, if we aren’t actively trying to bury it.

The depth of our feelings is a natural part of life that is inescapable. And beautiful.

Even if everything is good in your life, and you are a high vibe being who has a great relationship, plenty of love and abundance, and a fulfilling job. Even then, you can’t escape the feelings that pass through from time to time.

They are a natural part of life, and when you understand that they flow - which means they flow in and then flow out - they won’t linger as long.

It is our fear of feeling the bad feelings, that causes them to persist.

Whatever we resist, persists. We can’t hide from grief. It doesn’t disappear magically if we ignore it long enough. Whatever we don’t want to face, just gets stored in the body. Then the energy of it, creates triggers that haunt us when we least expect it.

We can’t hide from that proverbial monster in the closet, because it only makes it louder and bigger. It’s the not looking, that makes it all seem scarier.

This is where suffering sets in.

When we try to avoid feelings that only want to move through us, we create suffering in our minds and bodies. Chronic tension and dis-ease become a way of life, as the body holds tightly to that which we try to bury.

We are human, and feelings are something we can never escape. If we are holding on tightly to the things we don’t want to feel, we have less capacity to feel the things we do want to feel.

When we allow grief, fear, and anger to move through us, we create expansive space to feel love, joy, and awe.

It takes moving through darkness, to see the light. It takes moving through grief to feel love. It takes moving through fear, to feel safe.

It’s okay not to be okay. You don’t have to put on a “brave face”. You can own exactly how you feel. Sit in silence with it. Without any distractions. Allow the big cries.

You will be surprised at how good you will feel, when you let it all flow.