depression, and often find ways to manifest in the body as disease. It’s as if unacknowledged feelings just sit and rot, ill at ease, until they get the attention that will process them in healthy ways. Feelings are real, they exist and do not go away.
If you can’t feel it, you can’t heal it!
Most often, we jump to dismiss a feeling before healing takes place. We run to a better feeling thinking that will bring healing, and yes, it’s true, experiencing pleasantness does wonders for our healing and well-being - it’s a major topic I write and talk about - but if you can’t feel the sad, you can’t feel the joy. If you suppress feelings, you suppress them all. It’s why people struggling with depression have such a hard time feeling joy even in times that are offering much to be joyful about.
In other words, if you find yourself moving toward feelings just to “feel better,” you’ve created a semblance of happy that really has no power to heal. It’s only distancing you from the realness of the pain, that through the process of healing, can bring real joy into your life.
Of course, none of us want pain, but if you want the fullness of joy and true healing and well-being, you can only experience it when you feel all feelings to their depth.
With all the talk about happiness, many have misconstrued the message and very real neuroscience behind mindsets and beliefs. To think we can and should be “happy” all of the time. As with almost any teaching or concept, it can evolve into perceptions weighing too heavy on one side of the spectrum or the other.
The truth is, I’ve learned through working through more than my share of gut-wrenching feelings, the worst of which was the loss of my daughter, that it is possible to fully feel my sadness and still experience joy. Kind of like the tantalizing taste of salt and sugar, sweet and sour.
The best way to navigate through the constant wave of feelings is to simply acknowledge them instead of judging everything as either good or bad, white or black. They’re just feelings.
It’s moving with the ebb and flow and the truth, which is that we begin to feel the healing and fullness of life when we feel everything, living as we are meant to. It’s when we choose to live only parts of life that we feel pain - the pain of: I want more; the pain of, why?; the pain of, if only…; the pain of, if I were enough; the pain of if I hadn’t been dealt this hand; the pain of, it’s not fair.
My feelings, no matter what they happen to be are gifts, and they are my, compass. They exist to lead me, to speak to me, to show me my truth. As we begin to allow ourselves to navigate life’s ups and down in their entirety, I we hear whispers from our inner guide (our compass), reminding us that “everything’s going to be okay.” It is then that we may be able to acknowledge that pain or uneasy feelings aren’t all bad, and that is where the shift happens.
In that ebb and flow between good and bad - the real place of feeling the full spectrum - I can feel energized weariness; hurting love; exhausted relief; unacknowledged accomplishment; loss and gratefulness; hopeful yearning; as well as sad happiness.
The more we feel from this place, the less energy we will spend running from one feeling to the next, and the more energy we can spend on living the real joys of life.
Just like a peony pushing through the earth to finally blossom, or a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon to finally fly, both navigated through darkness and pain as well as joy of fulfilling their purpose.
Remember this: no feeling lasts forever and there is a vast supply of both feelings to be expressed, and living to blossom into.
Photograph by C.K. Kochis