Feeling Your Living
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“We live by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7
“How are you?” We reply, “Fine.” “How do you feel?” “I’m OK.” We usually reply. Polite answers to questions we know nobody really wants a true answer. We rarely reply with how we really are feeling. Feelings. We all have them. Feelings are not good or bad. They are just what life situations creates within us. I have been more focused recently on feelings – the feelings of others and how to express in words the emotions within my own soul.
When I counsel, I ask clients, “What are you feeling today?” “How is life going for you?” I am wanting to go deeper than the surface answer of “fine.” Fine is a non-word to me that has no meaning. It is said more to please the other person and deflect our true emotions.
I recently visited a cemetery where my friend’s parents are buried. Memories of childhood and his parents were expressed as we walked the cemetery. Then I began to read the feelings expressed on tombstones – the love, the sadness, the thankfulness, and the legacy of a life well lived. In reading loving tributes, I had other feelings of life that continues past the cemetery. At death, our feelings are intense, and we think we will always feel the same and never experience love this way again. We pour our heart into expressing our love and chisel it in stone. This love will always be part of our foundation forever just like it will be forever engraved in the stone.
Feelings change on the journey and in different seasons of life. Feelings are how we react to life. We usually live how we feel. If we feel sad, all of life feels depressing around us. If we feel tired, we tend to have no energy for even things we enjoy. Feelings can consume us if we allow them. Sometimes, we need to say to ourselves, “I feel sad right now, and I will allow myself to feel it for a moment. Then I can go and enjoy something for a moment and mingle joy with my sadness.”
How do we continue to live even though we feel consumed with our grief? I believe we need to express and acknowledge the feelings we have on our journey. It is admitting we feel sad, unsettled, frustrated, numb, agitated, overwhelmed, angry, and the vast array of feelings too numerous to name. Nobody can tell you not to feel an emotion. It is who you are and how you feel. When someone feels negative toward us, we take it personally and need to recognize it is their feeling and mood right now. You need not absorb it nor try to fix it. It is recognizing you will have different feelings throughout each day. Give yourself permission to feel, but not be consumed by the feelings.
We need to give thought to our feelings. “I feel this way because…” Naming the feeling and recognizing why we feel that way, helps us accept and deal with the feeling. It also allows us to release it and not stuff it down inside. Feelings do not just go away. We feel deep love and it abides in us and becomes a part of us. Feelings without thought and reason can lead us down an unhealthy path, but feelings can also open us up to new opportunities.
What if we change our focus from the feelings that control us to feeling the life we now have? That is, to be all in and embrace the life we now have. It is not the life you originally chose or dreamed of having, but it is the life you now have. Feel the life. Feel the new experiences. Feel the new you. Allow yourself to feel – to feel good, to feel love, to feel joy, to feel hope. We tend to focus on the negative feelings in grief and remember only how we used to feel. We focus on feeling so alone. Grief leaves us alone. It is a real feeling, and we live in this loneliness. What if on the journey somewhere, we chose to feel life again? We may not see it right now, but we are called to live by faith. Trust God will help you feel life and live into it.
