Be happy that you do feel something

A while back, I went to a concert of John Butler Trio and my heart, I loved it. John was so inspiring and authentic. I really floated out of there on a pink fluffy cloud, feeling so connected to myself.

Before that evening, I hadn’t even realized that I didn’t allow myself to feel excitement, gratefulness, love nor sadness, anger, or anything at all. I was convinced that my positivity was too positive and that my sadness or anger was too negative. I realized I didn't really allow myself to be human. But at the concert, I felt again. I felt love, I felt connected, I felt grateful, I felt sad and angry as well, tears, joy… I felt everything. And it felt so GOOD! So after the concert I started working on experiencing more of my feelings; love, gratefulness, goofiness, joy, passion, sadness, anger, all of it.

It's quite a hard road, especially when the less pleasant feelings present themselves, but it’s a worthy road. An authentic one.

I saw John being his truest self and I saw a room with hundreds of people enjoying him and themselves so much because of it. Our feelings and emotions are a huge part of our authenticity and I had forgotten about that. I still find it hard to express my emotions, because I’m not sure if they’ll be safe with the other person, but at least I’m experiencing them and I’m learning to share them. And that feels like honouring myself and my authenticity. It’s been an act of self-love to share my feelings (also the ‘bad’ ones) with the people around me or in my art. I'm becoming aware that I was the one with the emotional barrier, and that I’m also the one who can break it down again.

It's been a hard, but wonderful journey since I started expressing my feelings again. Developing emotionally has led me to experience deeper levels of peace and happiness, but it also means feeling sad, angry or uncomfortable whenever I feel that way. It doesn't mean acting on them whenever they pop up, but it does mean being aware of them without trying to change them. And not trying to change them is and will probably always be the hard part. In the end, it's not the fact that you feel anger that is so uncomfortable, but it's the resistance towards it. It’s the anger towards the fact that you feel anger that’s painful. It’s the judgement towards yourself for feeling those ‘bad’ emotion that causes the suffering. When you’re aware of it and you allow it to be there without judgement or trying to get rid of it, your experience of it changes. To give a little analogy: Emotion is energy in motion. It flows through our body and our systems and if it’s supressed, it will cause blockages and thus physical or mental pain. It’s as if you would open a faucet and the water starts flowing and you put your finger on it to block the stream. The water won’t stop flowing, but the resistance towards it will cause it to splash everywhere. It’s not the water itself that’s splashing everywhere, but it’s because we’re blocking its flow that it starts behaving that way. So once again, it's not the fact that you feel unpleasant feelings that is so uncomfortable, but it's the resistance towards them.

I’ve been working on finding ways to reduce the resistance towards the emotions I don’t like and it’s helped me to start feeling and expressing them as well. I’ve been doing it by talking, writing, drawing, creativity in general. It helps me to understand my own emotions and translate them into words. And when I started to give my emotions a voice, I was finally able to talk about them and I finally felt heard. I’m truly grateful that I started feeling again, because it’s led me to feel more connected to myself and others, it’s opened up a lot of space for more love and peace and it’s helped me to start talking about my feelings to other people as well. It opened up so much room for more positive emotions and deeper connections, to myself and to others.

I hope this encourages you to feel, and to express. It will be worth it. It will bring peace, love and joy. And… well… Okay FINE: It will probably also bring along some tears and fears, but don't worry about those. Invite them in, give them a big, warm loving hug and find a way to give it a voice.

With all my light, love, kindness, and appreciation,

Lynn