Have you ever identified as an emotion? It sounds strange, but we actually do it all the time.
If something pisses you off, you might say “I am angry”, or if you are feeling nervous about a particular event like social speaking or a hot date 😉 you might say “I am nervous”. But what we must note is that what we are feeling is exactly that, a ‘feeling’. No matter how intense or overwhelming it can be, it is still just a feeling, which means it is separate to us.
Megan Rose Lane uses a wonderful analogy of us being the sky and our thoughts and feelings being the clouds that pass by. Some clouds are fluffy and take the shape of a dog or a bunny rabbit; we like these ones, and we are happy for them to stay. These ‘good’ emotions could be things like happiness, excitement, or passion.
But as we know there are also storm clouds; these show up as dark and aggressive and we want them to shift on by as quickly as possible. These could be the emotions we don’t wish to experience, such as sadness, anger, or guilt.
The sky teaches us an important lesson which is to hold space for the thoughts and the feelings that arise within us. No one cloud sticks around forever, just like no one feeling stays permanently; they are merely visitors showing up and wanting a bit of acknowledgement before going about their merry day.
Sinead Hegarty explains this well in that, each feeling shows up to tell us something, for example guilt lets us know that we have done something which does not align with our core values and encourages us to not make that choice again. Loneliness shows up to let us know that we need some more connection in our lives, perhaps a phone call or a coffee with a friend or family member.
One thing I have learnt as part of my deeper dive into self-development is that what we resist persists. Say you are experiencing the feeling anxiety. Now I know what you're thinking, anxiety is a bitch don't let her in!
But when you push a feeling away it heightens it. I remember my first panic attack so vividly. I was working at Primark at the time and suffering badly with major depression; I had it in my head that I couldn’t go on living like it anymore and I couldn’t see an escape route. I ended up on the floor in an office, hyper-ventilating and crying my eyes out.
Thankfully someone from management realised what was happening, got me a glass of water which I could barely drink at the time and went through box breathing with me, which calmed my nervous system and got me back to a place of neutrality. The feeling I had had scared me so much I wanted to push it away, but in doing so it was like adding fuel to the fire, a super ferocious fire that was all consuming. I was still the sky, but I was trying to take the form of a cloud rather than let it teach me and float on by.
