A few weeks ago I was standing in my aunt and uncle’s kitchen, swaying my hips as I held a tiny infant to my chest — her little sighs leaving warm puffs of air on my collarbone — and I suddenly realized that if there was anything in the world I wanted to teach her, it would be to recognize her feelings and to feel them. To feel our feelings — both “good” and “bad” — is something we are taught with mixed messages. We are supposed to feel joy and share it with others — happiness is often depicted as an ultimate goal reachable through a path of commodified successes and Instagram filters. But our other feelings, like anger, confusion, frustration or sadness, that are not perceived as constructive, are constrained to certain events like funerals, break ups and finals week. We are taught, it seems, that when we have these feelings they are meant to be mediated, controlled and only conveyed when appropriate. We prioritize feelings that are positive, but this leaves us feeling guilty when we have other emotions and are confused when we feel the “wrong feelings” at happy events or when “nothing is wrong.” I often hear my friends and colleagues struggle to reconcile with the reality that we often feel many emotions at once or in rapid succession — we are taught that feelings are simpler and more binary than they actually are. And I know that I have been often guilty of trying to “fix” people’s bad feelings (and often my own) because they make me feel uncomfortable. Instead, I am learning that it is actually important and okay to let those feelings exist. It is an uncomfortable practice in a culture that wants us to be everything that’s happy all of the time, but I think one of the best things we can do for ourselves and for others is to be honest about the feelings we have. Feeling our feelings in a healthy way and not just suppressing them or writing them off is hard — and it is difficult to do if you grew up in an environment that encouraged you to do otherwise. But I think it is more dangerous when we allow our emotions to remain totally internalized, where they often form balls of anxiety in our stomachs and radiate as nagging headaches, leaving us feeling more out of touch with ourselves. In a world where emotions are constantly commodified and controlled, there is a level of resistance to be found in feeling your feelings.
Hannah Lane-Davies, a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at HaLane-Davies21@wooster.edu.