I haven't logged on to my regular Instagram account in...a while. This is not a humble brag, or even a regular brag. I still use my smaller "favorites" account to occasionally stalk people and see what they're up to. Usually it's boring. I find myself instinctively opening it to "check on the world" and then I immediately close out of it cuz I think "uh wait, nothing is going on there."
If anyone knows how to talk a topic to death, it's me. And Victor Hugo. But mostly me.
I'm learning how to notice my emotions when they come and to let myself feel them. It turns out I'm terrible at letting myself feel, especially what you might call "negative" emotions. Here's a list of feelings I am amazingly good at feeling:
things I love to let wash over me while I'm sitting in the driveway listening to very emo music:
1) nostalgia
2) love
3) humor
4) whatever the feeling is that comes when you start daydreaming excessively. excitement + wonder?
5) hunger (ha)
And then, to contrast that very small list:
things I am horrible at letting myself feel (i.e. I bottle these emotions up and sell them at the County Fair. I've still never won a blue ribbon.)
1) guilt for things other people have done (yes this is real)
2) faith
3) sometimes, enthusiasm for everyday, mundane things
4) sadness
5) anxiety
6) stress
7) pride (a better way to say this one: confidence)
This list is not comprehensive, but just writing it out made me feel weird. I guess I let myself feel that emotion.
On a podcast I listen to, she said something like this: all the work you do trying not to feel an emotion is so much harder on you than just letting yourself feel it.
And noticing and understanding our emotions and why we're having them is healthy, because then we can learn to control them. I am not great at this, but I'm getting better. Holding on to negative emotions can actually cause physical illness, and I can actually tell when I'm doing this now because I start to get a headache, I get nauseated, I just feel physically gross.
Late last year, I started to notice that every time I spent more than 20 minutes on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, I started to feel like sludge. Sometimes I would cry. I would have intense FOMO, about everything. Like even if I was looking at a stranger's social media profile, I would feel so completely inadequate, unsuccessful, poor, ugly in comparison that I had to delete the app and come back down to earth. Does that sound healthy to you?
On December 31st, I found wrote this on a piece of paper: "2018: The Year of Paying Attention." Then I wrote about what I felt like the Spirit had been nudging me to do for a long time, but I had been ignoring: start paying attention.
And here's what's happened since I wrote that note to myself and opened my eyes to what has always been in front of me:
1) I started going to therapy
2) I started reading actual books again
3) I started going on walks
4) I let myself feel, both good and bad. Still working on communicating those things, though.
5) I started writing more
6) I submitted poems I've been holding onto for over a year
7) I applied for a writing internship
Some of these things have been way out of my comfort zone. Anything I let go of had claw marks on it. Why is it that we, as humans, crave change so badly, and then when it finally gets to us, we want to run away screaming? Our comfort zones are just so comfy. But there's not really anything there, except for couches I guess.
And here is another thing I've learned! If you have fear of missing out on something, whether that be a sale, a vacation, a life-changing event, whatever....
what is meant for you will not pass you by.
So just think about that next time you're sitting in your bed late at night and scrolling through everyone else's highlights. And if you really want what they have, do somethin' about it.
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