MANTRA: EMOTIONS ARE PART OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. IT’S OKAY TO FEEL ALL OF THEM. I AM SAFE.
Day two of the feelings wheel! Today I felt a lot of positive emotions. Let’s be real – there isn’t just one emotion that goes with each day. But part of this challenge is showing myself it’s okay to feel all the feelings that come up.
Something that came up for me today was nervousness. According to the feelings wheel, this one comes up in the threatened category.
Nerves can come up for me based on a memory, an experience, a physical sensation. As I’m writing this, my cat found a bug and is chasing it around. Yikes.
When I think of myself, I consider myself to be a strong person. I see myself as someone who can handle a lot of things. Unless I’m triggered. Then I see myself in a totally different light because of the sensations that arise in my body.
Part of being triggered is feeling something come up for me that gets fight or flight to come up. Even in the smallest situations, the fight or flight is real.
Sometimes I decide to leave a conversation. Flight. Other times I decide to speak my mind. Fight.
Some days that feels animalistic. Like a cat chasing a bug.
Other times it feels a little more subtle. An urge to leave. An urge to say something aggressively.
When we spend a lot of our lives shoving down emotions, it can become challenging to find space from them. It can lead to overwhelm and losing your cool.
Take last week for instance. I felt myself get triggered. Something that could have been an every day situation led to feelings of “something is wrong with me” and “I’m not safe.” I cried extremely hard and had a bit of a panic attack. And it was because my body decided we reached capacity and are not going to just hold it all in.
Allowing myself to feel the “bad” emotions opens me allows me to let out small things as they come up. Instead of waiting for the big shabang.
It also makes more space for the good ones. Life is all about duality.
Nervous energy is part of the human experience. Learning that it stems from feeling threatened allows me to see how important it is to speak up for myself and what I’m experiencing in the small moments. When I say, “Hey, this is bothering me right now.” It doesn’t have to escalate because that threatened part of me knows that I’ll finally say something. Instead of just brushing it under the rug until I no longer can.
I’m realizing some of these things as I write them, which is why I think this is such an important exercise. You don’t have to share it with the world, but writing it down, sharing it with a friend, and/or going to counseling can really help. Awareness is one of the greatest gifts in life.
Acknowledging the “negative” emotions is not to choose to feel bad. It’s to choose to free yourself a little bit at a time. Would it be great to feel awesome all the time? Absolutely. But since life has a lot of twists and turns, let’s make room for all of the experiences, not just the ones that are looked at favorably.
You’re not alone.
What is a moment where you felt nervous and how did you move through it? <3