Feelings – Aspirational Adventures

A continuation from yesterday’s post – because I found the picture I was looking for. Interestingly it came to me when I’d stopped thinking about it and was walking the dog. Just popped into my head. I find lots of my ideas do that – just pop into my head. But I do forget that. Yesterday I spent the morning pondering what to put on my Substack for the coming week and then was sorting supper and it popped into my head so I wrote a 500 word pieces around memories of Christmas.

I also had more thoughts, after find the above, and from comments by Matt on yesterday’s post around the “How do you know?” thought which is similar to the fortune telling idea.

Too often we “know” what someone is thinking or why they have done X,Y or Z. But we don’t. We often don’t really know why we are doing what we are doing because much of it, I believe, is around triggers. For instance we suddenly lose our temper with someone, or a friend that we don’t lose our temper with but have horrid thoughts about, but we don’t really know why. Oh we do all the pondering and putting forward ideas to ourselves, generally that revolve around blaming them or ourselves, but it can be because what they said or did reminded us of a hurt from a parent, a teacher, a situation we were scared it. But instead of accepting we feel hurt, sad, whatever, we try to justify it.

Take this morning – I woke up feeling sad. Like really sad. And a bit snarky and looking for a fight. Thankfully it was only me, the dog and the cat about at that time. Though the cat can wind me up greatly at times!! The dog is an angel. Anyway I left the cat at home and took the dog for a walk in the dark just as the sun was waking behind the hills. Instead of trying to work out why I was feeling as I was – that whole thinking thing – I just accepted that this was how I felt and let it go.

A feeling is just a feeling. It is a chemical reaction in your body which, apparently takes only a few seconds to go through you unless … you decided to hold on to it and think about it.

So I’m not sure what was causing my feelings of sadness and crankiness but I know they’ve gone now because I didn’t chew them over and think about them I just accepted that was how I felt.

It saves so much time too. I’m not going over who might have said, or not said, done or not done, anything to me, or imagining what they are “really” thinking about me. For all I know my sad feeling this morning could have been because of a chemical imbalance that changed when I got out walking. Who knows? And I’m getting to the point of “Who cares?”

Though with all things, as Matt says about “How do you know?” it is “really hard in practice, though, because our brains are hardwired to make assumptions”. Though now there is a part of me that is going – is that our brains that are hardwired or is it our conditioning?

A thought for another time 🙂

And picture of the dog to finish with – especially for Gina who I know, and am not presuming, seconded guessing or fortune telling, loves my posts if I put a picture of Renly on them 🙂

A Feeling Is Just A Feeling And It Will Pass!

Diane Woodrow's fridge sticker "a feeling' just a feeling and it will pass" from Little Meerkat's big panic. — Stuck on my fridge. Sent to me by my dear friend, Jane Evans

Monday would have been my sister’s 58^th birthday. It is strange that I felt so low about it because I cannot remember the last time I celebrated her birthday with her. I don’t remember doing anything for her 18^th or 21^st. Yes I’m old enough to have had both an 18^th and 21^st birthday party!!! But by the time my sister was 18 our parents had separated. In fact even by her 16^th they were apart. But even before that I don’t remember her birthdays unless I look at photographs and then I’m sure it is more perceived memory rather than really remembering. My sister has been dead now for over 9 years and of course I still miss her. It is hard work being an only child now after having had a sibling for 49 years.

But anyway Monday I felt this overwhelming sadness mixed with other emotions of guilt, regret, fear, anxiety. I checked dates, remembered the significance, and accepted how I felt. Our bodies are so much better at remembering things than our heads. We so often need to bypass our heads and listen to our hearts and bodies. Something I am learning often. And we need to accept that a feeling is just a feeling and it will pass.

If we have lived a long and full life there will be many days where we remember things with sadness, with loss, with regret, with grief, and I am learning that this is alright. It is how I feel. It is a feeling from what was, but it is just a feeling. It is not the “now” of my life.

So when I realised the source of my sadness I journaled it, walked the dog and pondered it, accepted it, and placed it in a safe place. Not buried but not somewhere where today would fall over it. I got on with my day, checked out my heart regularly, was kind to myself – because I think often we can tell those feelings of loss, grief, anger, fear, anxiety, that they are negative and so shouldn’t be a part of our lives. But that is so untrue. Feelings are not negative or positive. Yes some are easier to sit with than others. Some we prefer, especially in others, than we do other ones. But they are just feelings.

Our feelings colour our memories and we need to accept that. We also need to accept that we won’t have a photographic memory of the past, no matter what some people tell themselves they do. What we do have is a memory of an event coloured with our feelings at the time overlaid with our feelings of where we are now.

So Monday I accept that I was feeling what I was feeling. Kept my thoughts to my journal. Waited till the feeling had got to a more settled place to be able to share on this blog. And it did as the sticker on my fridge said it would. It passed. I now have other feelings about other things but I know they are my feelings and are not the fact of the event.