How to Feel Your Feelings

My skin was hurting last week. It’s not a new thing. When this happens, it feels raw, kind of prickly, like I have waves of energy just under my skin, trying to push their way out. 

Electricity.

Something was definitely trying to come out, and I was not letting it. I knew what it was and why it was there and what caused it, but I hadn’t been dealing with it. Because I had work to do and people to take care of.
I used to be so good at holding in my feelings. 

Sadness, anger, grief, shame, resentment, envy…

Push that shit way down, Elsa-style.

❄️🎶 “conceal, don’t feel, put on a show” 🎶❄️

Even things like wonder and excitement didn’t feel safe to let people see, so I stuffed that down too.

But my skin doesn’t let me do it anymore. At the slightest hint of big emotions that my protective instincts say to repress, my skin sends out its electric porcupine spikes and forces me to feel what I am avoiding. 

In the moment, it’s fucking annoying. Hems of even my softest clothes (and I only wear soft clothes) scratch and pull uncomfortably at my skin. Soft breezes hurt. Cold is intolerable, but so is humidity. Gentle arm touches from others meant to be connection or comfort zap and then burn for minutes after the hand recedes.

I both hate it, and I am begrudgingly thankful for it now that I can recognize why it is happening.
It reminds me of all I have learned over the last few years through lots and lots of coaching and reading and working on myself that feeling my feelings is the only way to get through them. They want to be acknowledged and felt. And then released. 

The only way out is through.

So after a couple days of painful skin (it still takes me some time to realize what’s happening as my skin gets angrier and angrier), I finally allowed the flood of emotions to come out. I journaled. I listened to music. I talked to my husband, a few friends, my writing group, my therapist. I went to a sound healing. 

I cried all the tears. 

And now? my skin is finding its way to neutral as my emotions regulate. After wearing the same dress for three days in a row because it was all I could tolerate, I changed into something else. 

Emotions, when you don’t acknowledge or feel them, don’t go away. They have important learning for you. They allow the energy flowing through you to not get jammed up causing chronic pain or illness. 

“Feeling your feelings” may seem like a no brainer but it’s hard to do when you live in a society so ingrained in toxic positivity, 

in “don’t worry, be happy,”

in “it could be worse,”

in “look on the bright side,”

in “everything happens for a reason,”

in “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

When you live in a world where strong emotions make everyone else uncomfortable, and it’s our job as dutiful people pleasers to try to control everyone else’s experiences and emotions and opinions of us.

It’s been my whole life’s work to learn this for myself. To learn how to feel my big feelings unapologetically. And now to help others learn the same. I’d love to help you connect with your own feelings. 

Send me a message or book a call with the link in my bio to start the conversation. <3