Whew! You are not alone! Instead, you are describing me in my 30’s as I began therapy and learned what a feeling was and then how to name them. It’s a lotta work, and if you’re married to man who doesn’t like feelings or expressions of them like I was, it’s even harder.
More recently, I’ve learned the secret for me: when I’m dancing around uncomfortably, trying to NOT feel, if I get conscious enough to notice, I will sit down and breathe and invite in the feeling. I look at it carefully and try to describe how it looks. I ask it to tell me what it wants me to know. Generally they are very generous with sharing. Sometimes I weep and sob. Sometimes I breathe through fury and understand fire-breathing dragons. What I’ve discovered is that, once acknowledged, once seen and listened to, it morphs. Gradually. Beautifully. And suddenly I’m no longer feeling the same thing. It has changed. And I feel more peaceful. Sometimes. Or more grief. But when I sit with the feelings, they pass. Like clouds in the wind. They’re like our kids. They just need our attention. I think of them as precious teachers who are trying to let me know when I need something I haven’t realized yet.
Anger tells me when I need to make a change and haven’t realized it yet. Resentment is when I’m not taking care of myself and am spending too much energy on someone else. Etc.
I’ve come to deeply appreciate my feelings as friends who tell me just what I need to hear even when I don’t want to hear it.
There is so much wisdom and kindness in this Susan. Thank you thank you. Especially going to sit with this: "They’re like our kids. They just need our attention."
I started somatic therapy two years ago and have only recently been able to answer that dreaded question "where does this feeling show up in your body?" Anger is a hot face and restless body. Shame is a big lump in my throat. Grief is constriction in my chest, a literal aching heart. Sometimes getting outside helps, especially purposeful walk, a "moving to move through" vibe — uphill for anger and rage, something more gentle and cyclical for grief. But other times my therapist advised me to increase my window of tolerance and just SIT with the feelings. Feel my body flood. And then imagine that window opening enough to let in a crack of sunlight. This is the hardest work, so be kind to yourself as you're discovering these animal parts of your body 🤍
Getting outside makes a huge difference for me also. (There is such a thing as rage-weeding, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.) Inside, we are surrounded by right angles, boxes and squares. Outside, there are no right angles. When I’m in the woods, my vision can soften as I gaze ahead through the trees. Same thing at a beach. The sounds of outside are different. If I’m lucky there are no electric fields around. This slowing down and noticing puts me in a place to locate and name my feelings in a way that sitting in a chair with my therapist doesn’t. So we do other things that help me get there when I *am* ready.
I also want you to acknowledge the effect that many medications can have on the expression and release of feelings. Some meds are blunting. That can make a disconnect with feelings, even while providing other really necessary benefits.
This is all so relatable, both Courtney's essay and the responses in the comments. I feared my anger and tears for years, afraid that if I let them out, they'd never end and I would drown or be otherwise annihilated. Over the past few years, I've learned that like everything else, grief and anger shall pass, and will actually do so faster if I give full voice to them until they're done, knowing they could sneak back up at any time. If I'm not in a place where I can release them safely, I literally block out time, preferably the same day, to do so. This usually loooks like me either screaming or sobbing or both in the woods or alone in my car. It can look like having grace for myself and not powering through a project in the middle of a grief attack. It can also, more occasionally, look like rage-cleaning or rage-exercising till I'm on the other side.
I’m a big rage-cleaner. It’s usually for the biggest kinds of rage that also feel the most insurmountable in the moment - another Black person shot and killed, for instance; my immediate feelings are a tangled combination of grief and rage that need to be literally worked out before I can get to the fear underneath. (There is always fear underneath.)
Thanks for sharing all this, Courtney. I love the image of letting/forcing the cowgirl to take a break (and even getting her a lil tipsy) so the other parts of you can express themselves more freely. I have this part too (;
When I get so angry I could scream, I fill a journal entry with all of the completely over-the-top, furious accusations I have against anyone and everyone in my life. Sometimes I even have to write out "I recognize this is one-sided, but I'm allowed to do that in my own journal" so that I've given myself full permission to just rage. Usually I feel better, both because I've named all of the pent up rage, AND because I've realized there's more nuance than my rage-y brain was able to see through the heat of my fire.
Also, the phrase, "suddenly I'm outed as human," yes, isn't that the worst?! Way more fun to be above reproach. Sigh.
In recent years, I have a few times found myself so angry that I am literally screaming. Not words, just sound. It always surprises me. (I am not a screamer or teller.) I've come to realize it means I've been bottling a lot of things up. It's cathartic, though. It never happens around other people and I've shared that it has with very few. Meeting your vulnerability with some of my own, because your description of the girl you were and the woman she grew into hits so, so close to home.
Thank you for sharing this. I'm now imagining all of the people screaming alone in their houses , into pillows, in their cars, in the woods. We are not alone.
I could really relate to what you said about having ample space for other people's vulnerability and messiness but none for your own. I'm sure as a writer you feel pressure to not articulate things fully until you've been able to craft a narrative about them - I feel the exact same way. It feels against my craft to just say things like "This sucks, I can't handle it" in raw, unadorned language. But that's also an insane amount of pressure and I'm glad you're exploring this (publicly too!)
I relate to what you shared exactly! Thank you for putting it into words. My tough girl has boots on too, but there’s also an evangelical flavor to her chastising- so that’s nice. 😅 “feelings aren’t truth” and “good girls don’t get mad” etc etc. I absolutely love that you pulled the world card, and it’s alternate name of “wholeness” 🩵🩵
I highly recommend screaming into a pillow. It was the thing I did with gusto (but without thinking) to process a heavy long road of treatment ahead of me. It actually worked really well from a physical standpoint. Up until then I had always thought that a run/swim/walk was the answer but a good scream is both efficient and effective. Feelings of anger and grief do not necessarily dissipate or are 'solved' but it allowed me to put one foot in front of the other which is sometimes all that can really be expected. Xo
I always ask myself how would I visualize this feeling? Like in a sculpture or painting or whatever. How would I make it visible and knowable to others? Sometimes I actually make the thing, not always, but that helps me.
So much of this is true for me as well. I spent so much of my 20s thinking this was the "right" way to be—the shit-kicker. I have been doing a lot of IFS therapy work recently and it has allowed me to get in touch with those parts of me that feel that way and "give them a new job." I am primed this year to really delve into this work and become more in self energy in 2024 and I'm so pumped for it.
If we can think our way out of it vs feel it all, sign me up. I excited all the deeply feeling parts as "too sensitive" a long time ago. I can take in all of it for others. Heck, it's my job. Thirty years after the sudden death of my mother, I am shoving resiliency and strength and fortitude over for some room on the porch. Sitting down and welcoming little Barri and her feelings right down for a lemonade and some tears. Thanks for this.
I also subscribe to "grief tending" for my clients. Schedule it. It does not remove unruly waves, but it eases the overwhelm and uncertainly for what to do when they arrive. 🤍
I've always believed myself to be soooo vulnerable because I'd tell people just about anything about my life, including some of the dark traumas I've experienced. This was especially true in dating and relationships. As I've reflected on this, 1. it was a defense mechanism both of "please don't beat that, please take pity, I've had enough bad relationships" and of "if you fuck with me, I've been there and I know how to get out, you will not keep me for long."
But it really only hit me how, hmmm what's the word... Well hold on, changing course, it really only hit me what bad storytelling that is after I started going to and participating in Moth StorySLAMs. You have five minutes, no notes, to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. Now you can most certainly tell a traumatic story. But the key to that story being successful is a storyteller who has dealt with/come to terms with/worked through that trauma. It is obvious when someone has not. And it leaves people wanting to feel the correct emotion -- empathy, sympathy, horror, outrage, sadness -- but instead just feeling uncomfortable and confused. Having worked through more of my trauma, I understand how inappropriate, this is key, TO MY AIMS it is to tell those stories in just any old setting to any old stranger.
So that is to say, I was performing vulnerability, but I was certainly not in touch with it in any real way. And I'm in the comments to say this feels very true to my experience in therapy as well, where the first couple months my therapist would say, "Feel the feeling," and I would say, "Just tell me how!" But I think - haha nope - it feels lighter now, there is less resistance now, I feel more things.
Okay. This: “It’s a lot of work bullying a sensitive soul and having so much revulsion for frailty in a world filthy with it.” You could write a whole book (er, feel a whole feeling) about this, and I’d be first in line to read it.
YES! I can relate so much to all of this- the stoic Coloradan women who shaped me, the therapy sessions filled with lots of "thoughts about feelings." Thank you for your beautiful writing about I journey I'm also on ;-)
Oh lord: those hangovers after an explosion of emotion. I used to feel simultaneously wrung out and at a remove from myself. I say "used to" because over time feeling what I feel got easier.
I could have written this. (Although not as eloquently.) This is all the shit I’m currently wading through as I finish the draft of my memoir. Vulnerability is a bitch, but I’m trying to get to know her.
Whew! You are not alone! Instead, you are describing me in my 30’s as I began therapy and learned what a feeling was and then how to name them. It’s a lotta work, and if you’re married to man who doesn’t like feelings or expressions of them like I was, it’s even harder.
More recently, I’ve learned the secret for me: when I’m dancing around uncomfortably, trying to NOT feel, if I get conscious enough to notice, I will sit down and breathe and invite in the feeling. I look at it carefully and try to describe how it looks. I ask it to tell me what it wants me to know. Generally they are very generous with sharing. Sometimes I weep and sob. Sometimes I breathe through fury and understand fire-breathing dragons. What I’ve discovered is that, once acknowledged, once seen and listened to, it morphs. Gradually. Beautifully. And suddenly I’m no longer feeling the same thing. It has changed. And I feel more peaceful. Sometimes. Or more grief. But when I sit with the feelings, they pass. Like clouds in the wind. They’re like our kids. They just need our attention. I think of them as precious teachers who are trying to let me know when I need something I haven’t realized yet.
Anger tells me when I need to make a change and haven’t realized it yet. Resentment is when I’m not taking care of myself and am spending too much energy on someone else. Etc.
I’ve come to deeply appreciate my feelings as friends who tell me just what I need to hear even when I don’t want to hear it.
There is so much wisdom and kindness in this Susan. Thank you thank you. Especially going to sit with this: "They’re like our kids. They just need our attention."
I started somatic therapy two years ago and have only recently been able to answer that dreaded question "where does this feeling show up in your body?" Anger is a hot face and restless body. Shame is a big lump in my throat. Grief is constriction in my chest, a literal aching heart. Sometimes getting outside helps, especially purposeful walk, a "moving to move through" vibe — uphill for anger and rage, something more gentle and cyclical for grief. But other times my therapist advised me to increase my window of tolerance and just SIT with the feelings. Feel my body flood. And then imagine that window opening enough to let in a crack of sunlight. This is the hardest work, so be kind to yourself as you're discovering these animal parts of your body 🤍
Wow, you are in the 202 course on somatics. So inspiring.
thank you for saying that. having the time and space to do somatic therapy is a huge privilege and I am very aware of that privilege!
Getting outside makes a huge difference for me also. (There is such a thing as rage-weeding, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.) Inside, we are surrounded by right angles, boxes and squares. Outside, there are no right angles. When I’m in the woods, my vision can soften as I gaze ahead through the trees. Same thing at a beach. The sounds of outside are different. If I’m lucky there are no electric fields around. This slowing down and noticing puts me in a place to locate and name my feelings in a way that sitting in a chair with my therapist doesn’t. So we do other things that help me get there when I *am* ready.
I also want you to acknowledge the effect that many medications can have on the expression and release of feelings. Some meds are blunting. That can make a disconnect with feelings, even while providing other really necessary benefits.
all so true! thank you for sharing. and I have also done lots of rage gardening 😅
This is all so relatable, both Courtney's essay and the responses in the comments. I feared my anger and tears for years, afraid that if I let them out, they'd never end and I would drown or be otherwise annihilated. Over the past few years, I've learned that like everything else, grief and anger shall pass, and will actually do so faster if I give full voice to them until they're done, knowing they could sneak back up at any time. If I'm not in a place where I can release them safely, I literally block out time, preferably the same day, to do so. This usually loooks like me either screaming or sobbing or both in the woods or alone in my car. It can look like having grace for myself and not powering through a project in the middle of a grief attack. It can also, more occasionally, look like rage-cleaning or rage-exercising till I'm on the other side.
I like the idea of making space the same day. Thanks for that. Rage-cleaning is one of my go to's and I never had a name for it!
I’m a big rage-cleaner. It’s usually for the biggest kinds of rage that also feel the most insurmountable in the moment - another Black person shot and killed, for instance; my immediate feelings are a tangled combination of grief and rage that need to be literally worked out before I can get to the fear underneath. (There is always fear underneath.)
Thanks for sharing all this, Courtney. I love the image of letting/forcing the cowgirl to take a break (and even getting her a lil tipsy) so the other parts of you can express themselves more freely. I have this part too (;
When I get so angry I could scream, I fill a journal entry with all of the completely over-the-top, furious accusations I have against anyone and everyone in my life. Sometimes I even have to write out "I recognize this is one-sided, but I'm allowed to do that in my own journal" so that I've given myself full permission to just rage. Usually I feel better, both because I've named all of the pent up rage, AND because I've realized there's more nuance than my rage-y brain was able to see through the heat of my fire.
Also, the phrase, "suddenly I'm outed as human," yes, isn't that the worst?! Way more fun to be above reproach. Sigh.
My mentor always says, "Welcome to the human race." I love that.
Definitely a journal person so this really speaks to me. Thank you.
In recent years, I have a few times found myself so angry that I am literally screaming. Not words, just sound. It always surprises me. (I am not a screamer or teller.) I've come to realize it means I've been bottling a lot of things up. It's cathartic, though. It never happens around other people and I've shared that it has with very few. Meeting your vulnerability with some of my own, because your description of the girl you were and the woman she grew into hits so, so close to home.
Thank you for sharing this. I'm now imagining all of the people screaming alone in their houses , into pillows, in their cars, in the woods. We are not alone.
I could really relate to what you said about having ample space for other people's vulnerability and messiness but none for your own. I'm sure as a writer you feel pressure to not articulate things fully until you've been able to craft a narrative about them - I feel the exact same way. It feels against my craft to just say things like "This sucks, I can't handle it" in raw, unadorned language. But that's also an insane amount of pressure and I'm glad you're exploring this (publicly too!)
I relate to what you shared exactly! Thank you for putting it into words. My tough girl has boots on too, but there’s also an evangelical flavor to her chastising- so that’s nice. 😅 “feelings aren’t truth” and “good girls don’t get mad” etc etc. I absolutely love that you pulled the world card, and it’s alternate name of “wholeness” 🩵🩵
YES - wholeness is the theme of the year.
That 'you can't trust your feelings' message is one ieve had to unpick too ❤️
It runs deep ♥️
I highly recommend screaming into a pillow. It was the thing I did with gusto (but without thinking) to process a heavy long road of treatment ahead of me. It actually worked really well from a physical standpoint. Up until then I had always thought that a run/swim/walk was the answer but a good scream is both efficient and effective. Feelings of anger and grief do not necessarily dissipate or are 'solved' but it allowed me to put one foot in front of the other which is sometimes all that can really be expected. Xo
I always ask myself how would I visualize this feeling? Like in a sculpture or painting or whatever. How would I make it visible and knowable to others? Sometimes I actually make the thing, not always, but that helps me.
This really helps me, too. Thank you Katie.
So much of this is true for me as well. I spent so much of my 20s thinking this was the "right" way to be—the shit-kicker. I have been doing a lot of IFS therapy work recently and it has allowed me to get in touch with those parts of me that feel that way and "give them a new job." I am primed this year to really delve into this work and become more in self energy in 2024 and I'm so pumped for it.
Oh, love this idea of "giving them a new job." I'm going to marinate on that one...
Feel free to connect with me offline. I LOVE talking about IFS.
If we can think our way out of it vs feel it all, sign me up. I excited all the deeply feeling parts as "too sensitive" a long time ago. I can take in all of it for others. Heck, it's my job. Thirty years after the sudden death of my mother, I am shoving resiliency and strength and fortitude over for some room on the porch. Sitting down and welcoming little Barri and her feelings right down for a lemonade and some tears. Thanks for this.
I also subscribe to "grief tending" for my clients. Schedule it. It does not remove unruly waves, but it eases the overwhelm and uncertainly for what to do when they arrive. 🤍
"Grief tending" is such a beautiful phrase. Thank you.
I've always believed myself to be soooo vulnerable because I'd tell people just about anything about my life, including some of the dark traumas I've experienced. This was especially true in dating and relationships. As I've reflected on this, 1. it was a defense mechanism both of "please don't beat that, please take pity, I've had enough bad relationships" and of "if you fuck with me, I've been there and I know how to get out, you will not keep me for long."
But it really only hit me how, hmmm what's the word... Well hold on, changing course, it really only hit me what bad storytelling that is after I started going to and participating in Moth StorySLAMs. You have five minutes, no notes, to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. Now you can most certainly tell a traumatic story. But the key to that story being successful is a storyteller who has dealt with/come to terms with/worked through that trauma. It is obvious when someone has not. And it leaves people wanting to feel the correct emotion -- empathy, sympathy, horror, outrage, sadness -- but instead just feeling uncomfortable and confused. Having worked through more of my trauma, I understand how inappropriate, this is key, TO MY AIMS it is to tell those stories in just any old setting to any old stranger.
So that is to say, I was performing vulnerability, but I was certainly not in touch with it in any real way. And I'm in the comments to say this feels very true to my experience in therapy as well, where the first couple months my therapist would say, "Feel the feeling," and I would say, "Just tell me how!" But I think - haha nope - it feels lighter now, there is less resistance now, I feel more things.
Okay. This: “It’s a lot of work bullying a sensitive soul and having so much revulsion for frailty in a world filthy with it.” You could write a whole book (er, feel a whole feeling) about this, and I’d be first in line to read it.
Thanks love. I know you know the dance of differentiation in a world of such brokenness.
YES! I can relate so much to all of this- the stoic Coloradan women who shaped me, the therapy sessions filled with lots of "thoughts about feelings." Thank you for your beautiful writing about I journey I'm also on ;-)
in solidarity my sister
Oh lord: those hangovers after an explosion of emotion. I used to feel simultaneously wrung out and at a remove from myself. I say "used to" because over time feeling what I feel got easier.
I could have written this. (Although not as eloquently.) This is all the shit I’m currently wading through as I finish the draft of my memoir. Vulnerability is a bitch, but I’m trying to get to know her.