“Name your feelings to tame your feelings.” – Holiday Mathis
The holidays are upon us and everything gets amplified at this time. Lights are brighter, food is richer, decorations are more ornate than ever, and there is more of everything coming at us at every angle, and loudly. SALES!! BLACK FRIDAY!! ANOTHER HELPING OF STUFFING!! GUESTS!! PARTIES!! JINGLE BELLS!! LIGHTS AND LIGHTS AND FLASHING LIGHTS!!!
With this amplification of our material lives, often comes the amplification of our interior lives. What has been lying low, deep below the surface, often gets jostled awake by the sensory overload happening all around us. In short, the holidays can be A LOT. They can be a lot of fun, a lot of merriment, a lot of celebration, a lot of excess, a lot of planning, a lot of mess, a lot of memories, and a lot, a lot, a lot of feelings coming to the surface.
Feelings are not good or bad. Our feelings are just our natural compasses to remind us to do course corrections when needed, and to soak in, and to bathe ourselves in our moments of our internal peace and happiness. Feelings just are. But we often try to avoid our feelings at all cost, especially the ones that we deem to be “bad” feelings. Ironically, that just makes our feelings more powerful. Avoided, unobserved, repressed, suppressed, denied feelings end up controlling us, and at worst, hurting us by stagnating in our bodies, which can later cause unrest and disease. But the way to control our feelings, is to face them head on, in a detached matter, and to notice ourselves feeling our feelings. (see quote above – “Name your feelings to tame your feelings.“) Just like we have the ability to notice our thoughts, we can easily notice our feelings. When a feeling arises and catches our attention, we should take a pause and name the feeling. Anger. What does anger feel like in my body? Where does the sensation of anger happen in my body? Happiness. What does happiness feel like in my body? Where does the sensation of happiness happen in my body?
I read a book recently that said we could take this “notice your feelings” activity even a step further. As we feel the sensations of our feelings, we should then feel love for that particular feeling, and love for the power of that particular feeling in our body. Finally we should feel love for ourselves for feeling that particular feeling and all of our feelings. This activity ends up disciplining us to notice and name our feelings, to feel our feelings, and then to alchemize all of our feelings into love and acceptance for ourselves, and for our natural state of constantly shifting feelings. (Credit: Arnold Patent)
When you take this activity seriously and you make a conscious effort to do it, what has become really obvious to me, is just how quickly the feeling moves on. It’s like the feeling is saying, “Okay, thanks! Thanks for feeling me. That’s all I needed. I just wanted to be noticed and acknowledged! Thank you. I’ll be moving on now!” But if you deny or ignore your feelings, they become like indignant children in the middle of a tantrum. Their intensity grows and sometimes they get out of control. They will plant themselves firmly in place and scream, “Don’t you ignore me! LISTEN TO ME!!! FEEL ME!!! I WILL BE FELT!!!! KA-POW!!”
The next time you hear “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, playing in your local grocery store for the 16th time before Thanksgiving, as someone muscles you out of the way for the last tube of sausage on the shelf, stop. What are you feeling? Where are feeling it? Love the feeling. It’s intense, isn’t it? It’s powerful, isn’t it? Aren’t our bodies amazing messengers? Love your body and yourself, for being so amazing and full of sensation. Now notice how quickly the feeling has passed. (on an aside, if the feeling isn’t passing, you may be ruminating in your thoughts and your judgments. Notice those thoughts and judgments. Are these thoughts and judgments even really true and objective?) At this point, after fully feeling your feeling, you don’t even have the inclination to ram someone with your shopping cart anymore. In fact you may even hum a little bit to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, or perhaps even sing it out loud, as you are experiencing your new feeling of holiday cheer. What are you feeling now? Where are you feeling it? Love that new feeling. Most importantly, love yourself for the best gift that you are giving to yourself this holiday season. You are giving yourself the presents of presence. And that is a priceless, serene gift that you and all of us, absolutely deserve.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.