Hi there,
It’s me, again, with another series of the emotional roller-coaster of running a business being human.
Yesterday was a tough day for me. It was the day I couldn’t wake up from my bed, and the only thing I did was cry.
Tons of voices and open tabs in my head were screaming at me. I felt like I was in a cage surrounded by lions, ready to eat me alive.
I could feel how my body was in a fighting mood. Ready to fight an imaginary fight.
Nothing is worse than having your mind as your enemy and people around you constantly asking: Why do you feel that way? You have everything!
I was one of those people. I used to think that when you have “everything” (whatever that everything actually means), you will find that holy grail we all seeking- happiness.
I didn’t know that you also extend the inner space once you grow your emotional capacity.
And that inner space opens the door for all those feelings you didn’t feel and all the experiences you didn’t process.
We are all humans.
We all have been through pain, grief, loss, lack of connection, lack of love, or maybe abuse, emotional neglect, bullying, separations, etc. We are all connected with our ancestors as well. We carry the pain of our grandmothers, our grandparents’ lack of freedom, and our parents’ desperation.
When we feel what we feel, we don’t feel only our feelings but all the transgenerational baggage.
But the thing is that our society doesn’t like feelings.
We call people snowflakes, highly sensitive, too much whenever they are opening a talk about it.
We appreciate the tough ones that seem like they have everything in control because we secretly need to fantasize about the existence of such a person. After all, it helps us believe we can reach that stage and finally be free of all the pain and discomfort. So we project our hopes onto them. So whenever someone speaks about the not-so-comfortable side of being human, we reject them because it reminds us of our humanness.
We are having difficulties in allowing people to express how they feel when what we see from outside is that they should not be complaining about anything because they have everything.
We don’t accept their pain because we think our pain is bigger and we are entitled to suffer. We are in a competition of who suffers the most without having the courage to admit it.
We grew up in a society where to make us grateful for what we have; they told us: You should eat everything from your plate since there are kids in Africa who don’t have it. But they don’t realize that it comes with guilt and shutting down in front of our feelings.
We grew up in a society of parents telling us: You don’t have anything! It is not the end of the world whenever we injure ourselves. This made us disconnected from our feelings and not trust our bodies signals.
We grew up in a society where being the sensitive one, the one that expresses his feelings, is a weakness.
We grew up in a society that tries to toughen us up to “prepare us for the real world” without realizing that we are the real world. If we keep perpetuating the same behaviors and conditions, we are building the same world repeatedly.
The thing with our society is that we are brilliant at thinking, but we suck at the feeling part.
We buy tons of courses; we do countless hours of talk therapy; we try ayahuasca; we believe in astrology; we use God as a justification for everything we do. We know all the concepts, we know all the recipes, and all those yoga poses.
But what we don’t do is sit in discomfort. Feel the feelings. Spend time alone without distractions.
Without music, without podcasts, without TV.
We transformed this life into a constant run after productivity, filling our time with some activity and calling it a productive day. We don’t take time to visit nature and admire a tree. We need to remember how to connect with ourselves because we are so connected to all these devices, social platforms, and ideas in our heads.
I know that, at least in my case, this is what I experience. I’m so connected to all the noise around me that I can’t hear my voice.
I’m so used to believing that THEY have the answer that I forget I have it.
And the tricky part with this society, when we have all the information at just one click, is that it brings up frustration and guilt.
It creates this illusion that we can act on it just because we know it mentally.
At least in my case, yesterday I was beating myself up because I KNOW IN MY HEAD that everything is ok, that I’m healthy, Parentool is going well etc.
I was feeling guilty because I was wasting a day of my life feeling something I couldn’t even understand where is it coming from.
I felt ashamed that I should be stronger because I knew all these psychological things, right?!
But there was again a key ingredient missing: feeling.
Just feeling what it is to be felt without judgment, comparison, or guilt.
Feelings are not facts, but they are true for you. They are valid for you. They make sense to you. And that is enough, no matter what other people are trying to tell you.
I’m trying to say that 2 worlds need to be combined: thinking and feeling. Once we bring them together, we can start being.
Hugs!
P.S: Try not to judge people. We all have a story you know nothing about.
