Working Through Emotions... Feel It, Let it Settle, Then Turn the Page

Sometimes I know exactly how I feel. I’m angry. I’m sad. I’m disappointed, excited, worried or relieved. Nice and tidy. Emotion identified, label attached, move along please.

Some Emotions Don't Have a Name

And then there are the other times.

Those are the moments when someone asks, “What’s wrong?” and I genuinely don’t know how to answer.

Nothing is exactly wrong, yet something doesn’t feel quite right either.

I might be sad, but not entirely sad. Annoyed, but not really angry. Grateful for something and disappointed by it at the same time. I can miss someone while still being frustrated with them. I can love people enormously and occasionally want to send them all to a small island for a fortnight.

Human emotions are terribly inconsiderate like that. They refuse to stay in their assigned boxes.

Perhaps that is why I have started thinking about emotions as chapters in a book.

The Book We Carry With Us

Imagine that somewhere inside us is a rather enormous book containing every emotional chapter we have ever lived.

There are chapters filled with wonderful things- the birth of a child, falling in love, laughter around a table, holidays, friendships, music, achievements and those completely ordinary days that somehow became precious only after they were gone.

There are other chapters we would probably prefer not to reread quite so often.

Loss. Arguments. Rejection. Betrayal. Embarrassment. Regret. The things we said. The things we didn't say. The times life changed direction without bothering to ask whether we were ready.

The interesting thing about memory is that we don't simply remember what happened.

Often, we remember how it felt.

A song can open an old chapter. So can a smell. A photograph. A place. Someone's name appearing unexpectedly. Suddenly, there it is - the emotion we thought had been safely filed away years ago.

But remembering a chapter doesn't mean we have to move back into it.

We can open the page, recognise what happened there and perhaps understand it differently from where we stand today. Then we can close the book again.

The chapter remains part of our story.

It just doesn't have to be the chapter we're currently living.

Working Through Emotions We Can't Explain

I think we sometimes make emotions harder because we believe we should be able to explain them. We want to find the correct word and then work out what to do about it.

But what if there isn't one?

Sometimes an emotion is really multiple emotions standing on each other's shoulders wearing a trench coat.

There might be sadness underneath irritation. Relief tangled up with guilt. Love sitting beside resentment. Nostalgia mixed with grief and gratitude.

Sometimes we're simply emotionally tired after carrying too many little things for too long.

Perhaps instead of asking, “What am I feeling?” we could ask something gentler:

“What is this feeling trying to remind me of?”

Maybe it belongs to an old chapter. Maybe something happening today resembles something that happened years ago. Perhaps we are grieving something that hasn't actually disappeared but has changed.

Or perhaps life has simply become a little too noisy inside our heads.

We don't always need an immediate explanation.

Sometimes recognising that something is there is enough.

And Then There's My Imaginary Broom

I also have another slightly less philosophical method.

I sometimes imagine sweeping an emotion out the door. Not in the unhealthy “I refuse to feel this” kind of way. More like one of those good witches in a story who has finally decided that whatever dark nonsense has been hanging around the house has overstayed its welcome.

Out comes the broom. Right then. You've had your moment. Off you go.

There is something wonderfully satisfying about imagining a worry, resentment or endlessly repeating thought being swept across the floor, through the doorway and out into the world.

It sounds ridiculous. I don't particularly care.

Our minds respond to imagery. We constantly replay imaginary conversations, rehearse future disasters and resurrect arguments from fifteen years ago while standing innocently in the shower.

If imagination can be used to torment ourselves, surely we're allowed to occasionally use it to clean house.

Sweep, sweep.

Hooroo.

Sweeping Isn't the Same as Pretending

There is an important difference between releasing an emotion and denying it. Some feelings need attention.

Grief doesn't disappear because we tell it to. Hurt sometimes needs to be spoken about. Anger can tell us that a boundary has been crossed. Anxiety can occasionally point towards something we genuinely need to address.

The broom isn't about shoving everything underneath the emotional rug. We've all seen what happens when you do that. Eventually, there is such a bloody great lump under the carpet that everyone is tripping over it.

Instead, perhaps the process is simply:

I feel this.

I may not completely understand it.

I'm willing to sit with it for a while.

I'll take whatever lesson belongs to me.

And when I'm ready, I'll let it move through.

Some emotions may need several visits before they finally leave. That's okay too.

We Are Allowed to Feel Two Things at Once

The older I become, the more I realise that life rarely gives us pure emotions.

Births can bring enormous joy and enormous worry. Weddings can be beautiful while reminding us of people who aren't there, or that some who are there do not get along.

Funerals can contain devastating sadness and unexpected laughter. Family gatherings can make us feel deeply grateful for the people around the table while simultaneously wondering how long it will be before somebody mentions that thing from 1997.

Love and frustration can exist together.

Grief and gratitude can share the same chair.

Relief doesn't cancel sadness.

Happiness doesn't mean everything is perfect.

Perhaps emotional maturity isn't reaching some serene state where nothing bothers us anymore. Maybe it's becoming more comfortable with the fact that we are complicated creatures capable of carrying contradictory feelings without immediately needing to choose between them.

I am certainly a mixed bag.

Most of us probably are.

Turn the Page

If our lives really were books, I wouldn't want mine filled only with pleasant chapters. I'm not sure it would be much of a story.

The difficult chapters have taught me things. Some have changed me. Others have made me question what I once believed.

There are chapters I would never voluntarily repeat, but I can still acknowledge that they belong within the story of who I became.

What I don't want is to spend the rest of the book rereading the same painful page.

So perhaps that is the practice.

Feel the emotion.

Listen to it.

Let it remind you of whatever needs remembering.

Write another sentence if you need to. Then, when the time feels right, close that chapter.

And if the stubborn little bugger follows you into the next one? Well. There's always the broom.

A Thought to Take with You

Is there an emotion you've been trying to name when perhaps it doesn't need a name at all?

Maybe it simply needs to be acknowledged, understood as best you can, and eventually given permission to leave.

And perhaps there is an old chapter you've been rereading for long enough.

You don't have to tear it from the book of you.

You can simply... turn the page.

Namaste

Deb xx

Thoughtful writing across life, mind, and meaning

If writing helps you untangle what you're feeling, Burn After Writing by Sharon Jones offers prompts for putting some of those thoughts onto paper.

Sometimes we don't need to solve an emotion; we just need somewhere safe to put it while we make sense of it.