I’ve been doing deeper-than-usual dives into my inner work and into exploring… what are feelings, anyway?
Reading the latest scientific research about how and why the brain creates emotion in the body.
Looking at my own feelings through this lens.
And I keep coming back to what I have always known.
Our feelings matter. They are one of the senses we use to navigate our lives.
Like, imagine if our culture was afraid of sight. Like our eyes are dangerous and not to be trusted, so everyone goes around in blindfolds. People who are born blind are considered to be closer to God than everyone else.
And what if your blindfold slipped and you could see danger coming and tried to warn people and everyone just called you hysterical for believing your eyes?
That’s what happens to people who feel their feelings. And people who are better at suppressing their feelings are considered better, they will navigate our political and economic systems and be successful, in the most capitalist definition of success.
Our feelings are not EVERYTHING and they are not NOTHING.
They are one of the ways our brain processes our life.
Almost 7 months after my husband told me he was having a nervous breakdown and left me - I’ve had a lot of feelings I didn’t want to have.
But I gave them space. I haven’t made any of them THE TRUTH of anything. But I have let them exist, and not tried to squash them down or pretend they are not there.
And you know - they’ve shown me a lot. About my own beliefs, about my own actions, about what I want.
“Feelings” is so charged in our culture just because our culture is unnecessarily suspicious of them.
You don’t have to be.
I’m not saying believe and obey your feelings. Just give them some space.
Like, say you’re so angry with your ex-husband you want to firebomb his house. Don’t actually do it, but give your body space to actually express all of that rage.
There were moments in the last few months that I learned what the phrase “blind with rage” meant. I felt so much rage, I couldn’t see right.
I screamed into a pillow. I punched a pillow. I cried. (I hate it, but crying is how I express rage sometimes). I scribbled in my journals.
I discharged the energy and then I felt good.
Just like how animals in the wild will shake, after a close encounter with a predator. They are discharging the energy.
If you don’t do this, if you tell yourself you’re not that angry, or that it’s not ok to be angry, you’re only creating problems for yourself.
FEELINGS are not something I ever wanted to know about and certainly not a subject I ever imagined myself writing about, as a part of my creative work.
But if we don’t allow ourselves to feel our feelings in healthy ways - our dreams will be totally stuck.
It’s the only way.
Refusing to feel your feelings stunts your possibilities. And I don’t want that for you, or for anyone.
Use the Creative Dream Alchemy Library of Inner Work Practices for support. And the call on Working With Conflicting Feelings.
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