Will I Be Able to Feel Again

Learning to Feel Again

With that other part of me that isn't my mind

All comics by the author

My mind and I have been through a lot together. For as long as I can remember, my intellect has guided me through life, both in tough times and in tougher. It's not only helped me figure out what to do and how to live, but it's provided a sanctuary of fantasy and order where I could retreat from the reality and chaos. I love my mind like a dear friend.

Of course, talking about me and my mind this way begs the question of who the "me" in this discussion exactly is. I know there is more to me than just my thoughts, but it is odd to imagine that my mind is a dear friend to my liver or aorta.

I suppose what I mean is that my mind feels like a friend to my feelings. This makes some sense since my feelings are the only part of me that can know what it "feels" like to have a friend. And even though trying to define myself as a duality of mind and body leads into an endless neurological, philosophic, and linguistic rabbit hole, the model still serves me for the purposes of this discussion, whoever me happens to be.

The truth is that I've lived in my head as much as I could. The rest of me has largely been more of a playground than anything else. A toy to be used for fun and to be otherwise ignored as much as possible.

Despite my best efforts to run away from my feelings, they've always been there. In fact, feelings were there for millions of years before evolution slapped on that self-reflective, self-creating, past and future loving part we know all too well. Evolution tells me that I am primarily a sensation-oriented being, like every other living thing on the planet. Hiding just beneath my constantly busy mind has been this very significant other part of me, buzzing, pulsing, and surging with informative feelings that I have mostly pretended weren't there.

I didn't always live in my head. I started off as a fully sensate being, like everyone else, with my feelings freely flowing through me as they were meant to do. For, maybe, three days. Then my sensations proved too painful. I didn't get picked up enough as an infant and was too often ignored as a child. I'll spare you the list of developmental traumas, starting with both upper and lower case Ts, that drove me away from my emotions. Suffice it to say that my head was the only place I could go to escape the pain. It was also the only place I had any agency and chance of figuring out how to avoid feeling bad.

Ignoring my feelings partially worked. I tapped my anxious leg, clinched my tense back, ground my fractured teeth, and smoked my pre-commercial pot to allow me to plow ahead, imagining good feelings.

Eventually, this approach stopped partially working. A few years ago I had stumbled on the crazy idea of involving my body in my emotional healing. I tried Somatic Experience therapy, read a couple books, and took a workshop with Peter Levine. It was all new and confusing, but I started learning to be more tolerant of my feelings and to follow them instead of running away.

Now, the tension of holding off the pain has become as painful as the pain itself. And the idea of actually feeling my feelings has become my new goal, as difficult as it sometimes can be.

I wish I could say that this prescription has been a magic elixir that quickly opened the world to me in one quick dose. But as with every other effing thing in this god-forsaken world, it's been a process. Opening the flood gates to six decades of stored grief, loss, and anger, is no sashay in the park.

My feelings are scary and overwhelming which is exactly why I ran away from them in the first place. But I am no longer a helpless child unable to do anything about it. Now, with highly trained and experienced professional help, I've been titrating my way through the pain, a little at a time. Then a little more. And then some more. Then more and more until I'm repeatedly flummoxed by the volume of grief inside me. I wouldn't be surprised if every emotional boo-boo I've ever had is still in there, perfectly preserved.

I've grown increasingly connected to my sadness. Now I can have a cry in the car on the way to perform comedy. Or on a walk. Or in the market. It turns out there are a bunch of times that are ideal for sneaking in a cry.

Anger is still tougher for me to deal with. Anger is the most forbidden of feelings, more threatening than Eve's apple ever dreamed of being. As such, it's taken time to even notice when it's there. Well, at least when I'm not screaming and throwing stuff, which tends to make it much easier to spot.

Still, I'm better able to accept and allow all my feelings. My hope is that the more I am able to let my feelings move freely through me, the less vigilant and anxious I will be trying to make sure they don't. If I achieve nothing else, the relief from the constant tensions and fear born in trying to fend off my emotions will be enough. Perhaps being released from that anxiety and stress is all I need. Perhaps it's all there is. Maybe there is nothing more to healing than a return to the full-body, sensory, in-the-moment experience that we all had for at least a few hours after we were born. Even with grief, sadness, and anger, the more I am able to feel my feelings, the richer life feels.

My mind has truly been a friend to my feelings. Even when it aided and abetted me in ignoring them, it was always trying to protect me. Protect me until it could guide me back to a better way of experiencing the world, which, as nutty as it sounds, seems to be for it to step back and let the rest of me actually experience it.

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Source: https://betterhumans.pub/learning-to-feel-again-68fe693cddcd

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