I want to have a serious talk about emotions. I know, I know… you are probably thinking “Raquel, we always have serious talks”, but seriously. One of the main patterns I notice in all gender identities is the inability to feel emotions, and the diminishing of the ones felt. When I tell you nothing hurts my heart more, I mean it. The entire point of life is experiencing the emotions that come along with it. I spent years dissociated and just drifting through, and I refuse to let anyone I impact to live such an empty experience. So, listen closely.

First of all, what do I even mean.

When I talk about the inability to feel emotions, I mean literally experiencing emotions and trying to talk yourself out of them. Let’s say you get your feelings hurt, the first thing you may do is say “it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have let anyone that close”, “toughen up” or my favorite “Life goes on” as if it ever stops. All of these are statement that take away the fact that you are human and are entitled to your emotions. Why is this a big deal?

Emotions are all one muscle. If you don’t exercise them, they get weak. For example, the times you should be feeling good emotions deeply, you will barley enjoy them because you have conditioned your brain to think “life goes on” or “this is an expected accomplishment, on to the next goal”. You can’t pick and choose what emotions you feel in their full capacity, your brain is an all or nothing type of machine. You either want to allow yourself emotional maturity, or you want half the experience of what life feels like.

On to the diminishing. I remember when I spoke to a rape victim and the first thing, they said was “well at least I survived”. Immediately diminishing their experience because it “could be worse”. Or the partner who gets cheated on and immediately says “at least we weren’t married”, as If their amount of hurt shouldn’t be that serious because a marriage certificate wasn’t present.

 Sounds crazy right?

If you grew up lacking praise but being in trouble was a big deal in your household this is for you. If you grew up in a household where the entire family was called when you made mistakes, this is for you. If you grew up and had to raise yourself or siblings this is for you, if you grew up like me in back-to-back traumatic experiences this is, especially, for you.

Emotions are a personal experience. You get to sit through them, all of them. You are entitled to them, and they are valid simply because you feel them. Nothing worse needs to happen to you for you to have a great magnitude of emotions, and no accomplishment needs to be bigger for it to be a big deal. You deserve to feel emotions without having to explain why you have them. They are yours, only sharing them when you want/need to. Feel through it.

You wonder why you feel like you have nothing to celebrate, why you feel stagnant and stuck out of no where? Because you have made yourself think that nothing is a big deal. When you’ve accomplished so much, and if you would just sit back and feel through life, you would be so inspired and chasing the next emotional high. Even the lows make the highs worth living.

Be more than surviving, be more than floating through. Be brave enough to cry and rejoice. Don’t let this world diminish your accomplishments, don’t let anyone tell you that happened too long ago for it to hurt you. Don’t let anyone take away your emotions, they are your biggest power. It’s scary to admit how much some things hurt, intimidating to admit what happened, but I promise, the feeling that comes after is worth the experience.

Life is worth feeling. Go back and celebrate the things you overlooked, go back and cry about the things that deserved your tears.

-Healing is feeling.  

If you need a safe space to relive and feel through what’s needed. Let’s Chat

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