About 10 years ago,
I learned
That feelings
Were not only
Okay to have,
They were essential.
Worth feeling.

This came as a revelation
To me.
A daughter
Of a proud Japanese father.
Don’t misunderstand.
It wasn’t all his fault,
That I believed that
Emotions were a problem.
Something to fear.
Something that showed weakness.
Something that caused havoc.

And even after I heard
This revelation,
I had to ponder it.
Examine it.
See whether I thought it was true.
Experiment on the word,
So to speak.

Up until that point
I had spent
Most of my life
Suppressing
Repressing
Avoiding
Feelings.
Especially the ones
That I didn’t prefer.
The ones that
I wouldn’t classify
As enjoyable.

This resulted
In quite a collection
Of unprocessed emotion.
Unfinished tasks,
Like a computer
With about a million open tabs
Beckoning:
Don’t forget;
Come back and finish this one.
Circles clocking endlessly
In the background.

And then I learned
That allowing them –
The emotions –
Energy in motion –
Meant
Letting them just exist.
Allowing
By definition
Means not trying to

Fix
Control
Manage
Change
Prevent
Reason with it
Talk myself out of it.

Just allowing.

What?
And then by allowing them
They wouldn’t stay forever.

It seemed simple
But not easy.

Add to that,
I further learned that
Neuroscience
Showed that the pathways
In the brain
From pain caused by
Bullying
Heartbreak
Grief
Are the same ones
As physical pain.

But by allowing them
Meant to complete
The cycle
Fully.
Kind of like
Completing an order
And closing the tab.
Because
On the other side
Of that emotion
Is a different emotion.

So the paradox is
That by allowing them,
They don’t stay.
But when I don’t allow them
They stay.
For a long time, in fact.

I learned years ago
“What you resist, persists.”
According to Carl Jung
A Swiss psychiatrist.

My dear friend Jamila
Once explained to me,
“If you refuse to
Feel your feelings,
It requires
A tremendous amount
Of energy.
Like holding
An inflated beach ball
Under the water.”

In other words,
The amount of energy
That is keeping
All those open tabs
On my computer,
Is nothing
Compared to
The amount of energy
I’m using every single day
Trying not to feel
Certain feelings.

And then I learned
You cannot only choose
To suppress
The “negative emotions.”
It’s all or nothing
In this case.
So we suppress the “good”
When we suppress the “bad.”

Why am I using quotes?
Because apparently,
All feelings
Are important.
It’s just me
Who decides
What to make it mean
And how I want to judge them.

The good emotions
Are just feelings
I enjoy feeling.
And the bad emotions
Are not inherently bad.
They just might
Interpreted as
Less pleasant.
Which makes sense.
They may
Feel uncomfortable.
Maybe even painful,
According to
Our brain’s interpretation of it.

And I remember crying
Once –
Deep guttural sobs
From feelings
That I had been resisting.
From something that happened
Long before that day
That I allowed myself
To feel them.

And an interesting thing happened
Because in the middle of that
Painful moment
I had another thought:
It’s so incredible
To release this
To let it out
To no longer
Carry it around
Everywhere I go –
To the store,
To the beach,
To the other room
In my house…

It feels so much better
To feel.
To feel alive
And to feel the emotion
Be released
From my heart
My body
My soul –
Where I had been holding it
And holding onto it –
In such a visceral way.
And then witnessing
It’s transformation
Into something else.

It was intense.

I began to wonder.
Is that why?

Is that why
The very act
Of the atonement
Of Jesus Christ
The hardest thing
Anyone has ever
Had to endure?
Was the agony
Caused by emotions?
Caused by
The act of feeling?
Feeling every emotion
In our lived experience
One by one.

In that moment of time,
Did He also feel our joys?
All the feelings
That we call “good?”

Joy can sometimes
Be as overwhelming
As grief,
Can it not?
Both have consumed me.
Both have brought me
To tears,
My legs weak
Beneath me,
Unable to hold
The weight of the emotion
And hold myself up
At the same time.

Was the act
Of feeling the feelings
The thing
That brought sweat
As great drops of blood
From every one
Of His pores?

Was even He,
The Savior of the World
Himself,
Not immune
From their effects?

No wonder then,
That I
A mere human
Might hesitate
Balk at
Even take desperate measures,
To avoid feeling
My own feelings.

No wonder then
I might feel
More comfortable
In my head,
Along with
Logic and reason.
Those feel safe.
Those make sense.

I’ve learned
That I cannot
Intellectualize emotions,
Despite my best efforts.
I cannot think
My way out of them
Or through them.
Because feelings,
By their very nature,
Are felt.

And emotions require
A connection
To the body
For that’s where they are felt.

No wonder
I thought mine was unsafe
And flawed
For so long.
My mind
Tried to disconnect from it.
Blaming my body
Mistaking it
As the source of pain.
When in reality
It wasn’t the cause,
Just the vehicle.
The messenger
I wanted to shoot
And silence
Because I didn’t like
What it had to say.

Even though
The messages
Were directly from….
Myself?

I’m still practicing this.
But I am learning
That when I allow my feelings,
On the other side
Of the tunnel
Is release
And freedom.

And it does feel
A little bit
Like letting go.
Releasing my grip
On the beach ball
That I’ve been holding
Underwater.