I am a human. I know this mainly because of two reasons – I was taught this at primary school, and I am overflowing with these very inconvenient little things called feelings.
In my brain, there is a logical, neatly packaged up little section that tells me what is right, what is for the best, what is realistically going to happen and not going to happen, and explains in simple terms to me why I should not feel a certain way about things.
In a much, much larger place, messy and unkempt, overflowing and vastly confusing, is the section that completely overshadows it. This is where I throw all the lovely logic out with the rubbish and every single thing I know I shouldn’t be feeling, I somehow then do.
All the feelings I have which I am being told are a waste of time, unnecessary and just plain wrong, are happily dancing on the grave of any logic I may have briefly considered. They don’t help me, they don’t make sense, they make me feel crazy.
Why am I sad? I should feel happy.
Why am I anxious? I should feel excited.
Why do I care? I shouldn’t.
Well, the word should, has an awful lot to answer for.
You can try and suppress your feelings, strap them down in the furthest region of your mind and fiercely deny they exist. Now and then they will bubble up and knock at the door. They will try their very best to make themselves known and you may in fact, believe you are a crazy person. The fact is, feelings are never going to go away. Feelings are a part of you and a part of being human. An essential part. A privilege. Because of them, we get to live a richer, more worthwhile existence. So why would we want to deny them? You can’t force yourself to stop them and if you try, they will just multiply with a vengeance.
In an ideal world, we would all be happily in touch with our feelings. We would know how to recognise them and how to deal with them. We would separate them out, categorise them, understand them. And they would be exactly the ones we expect at exactly the right time. Shame that hardly ever seems to happen.
The reality is that they are going to catch you out many times over and you may be shocked to find how you really feel about something. It may not be what you expected and more importantly, not what you wanted. But go with your feelings. They are yours and it’s okay to feel this way.
Lauren x