 Sometimes, something or someone pisses me off so badly that I shake with anger. Occasionally, something makes me so happy that I cry with joy. Other times I become so sad that I weep uncontrollably. Some days things seem like a huge deal, while others I can just shrug them off. I listen to my emotions and react accordingly in order to keep my head and heart happy. Most people, from my experience, can also relate to all of these different emotions and reactions.
We are all only human and can only control so many things and the way we feel is not one of them. (I am not a psychiatrist or doctor or whatever you need to be in order to without a doubt know if that is indeed always true. So maybe there are in fact people who can control the way they feel, but I am not one of them. Nor are the people I have spoken to one of them. Maybe over time one can train their emotions. Who knows...) Yes, we can control our reactions to those feelings, but you cannot just ‘not feel’ something. When I am sad, I wish I could just shake it off and tell myself that I am happy and do not want to feel sad, but it doesn’t always work that way. The one thing that can really spark my frustration is people who try to tell others how they should and should not feel. When I am upset and someone tells me that "it's not that big of a deal" or "I'm making a bigger deal out of something than I should", I wonder, how anyone could possibly know exactly how I feel in a specific moment? When something makes me anxious and I voice my concerns only to hear "you don't look anxious", I wonder, what exactly does anxiety look like? Do you live in my head and my heart? Do you feel emotions the way I do? Or love how I love? Are you secretly my clone? Because if not, how can you tell me what is and is not a big deal? Or how I should or should not feel? When you feel strongly about something it is not okay for someone else to act like your feelings are irrelevant, because they are not. Your feelings matter, even if they are over dramatic or you are acting a little crazy, you feel what you feel. I am guilty of thinking that my feelings do not matter. I am guilty of justifying my feelings to others, when I do not need to, nor should I have to. I often make excuses for my emotions or my reaction to those emotions. If I am upset and want to lay in bed all day, I cannot tell people that because we come from a culture where when asked “How are you?” most people respond with “good” or “fine” regardless of how they really are. We are all guilty of conforming to the norm from time to time, instead of just expressing how we really feel. My new belief is that life is too short to deny yourself the freedom to just feel however it is that you want to feel and react to those feelings however you choose.
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