required to feel.”
As we approach Christmas, New Year’s Eve and 2020, what are you noticing about your energy and your emotional state? There may be a list of shoulds in your mind; “I should be joyful, happy, excited, ‘ready’.” And you may notice a little bit of anxiety or even dread.
I notice how few of us have a vocabulary or lexicon of feeling words. There are hundreds of them. They go beyond happy, mad, sad. However, unless you were raised in a very emotionally literate family or attended schools with social emotional curriculum, you may sometimes be at a loss when asked; “How do you feel?”
We often respond with physical feelings: tired, stressed, or maybe relaxed. We rarely say scared, anxious, or uncertain. I had an experience a while back when someone asked me if I was excited about an upcoming trip. I said that I was actually a bit anxious. The response was (very vehemently) “No, that’s silly, you should be excited.”
But I was anxious. It was true, not logical, but emotional.
As we enter this season of giving and receiving, I invite all of us to experience a bigger range of emotions. Allow yourself to feel what’s really there. I am reminded of a workshop I led when I asked people what they were grateful for. One of the participants offered, “There is a difference between knowing what I am grateful for and experiencing gratitude.”
Allow yourself to FEEL and experience the emotion of gratitude.
I’d love to hear from you.