Don't Deny Yourself of Your Feelings
It’s December and that means the year is coming to an end. 2019 has been a journey - I traveled to 4 new countries and accomplished my New Year’s resolution to travel more and go beyond my comfort zone. While I want to stay positive and say the year was all pretty birds and butterflies, it wasn’t. I, personally, and we, as a society, dealt with some heavy and emotional stuff this year too. I traveled to Hong Kong and experienced the largest civil unrest I have seen in my lifetime. I saw a lot of people in the media opened up about their struggles with mental illnesses. I read about the heartbreaking news of recent deaths in the K-pop entertainment industry and just how much damage social media can bring. I myself struggled to understand my own feelings and went into some rabbit holes of deep thinking.
Coincidentally this year in the Fall we started focusing on social-emotional development at the volunteering program I am a part of. We started doing restorative circles and 4Rs (Reading, Writing, Respect, and Resolution) with fifth grade students. Each week was a different topic. We talked about what it means to be a good listener. We read a story together and asked students to described the feelings experienced by the characters. We played charades and have students act out what a feeling may look like when they can’t communicate in words. We asked them to share a story in which they experienced a particular feeling. Throughout the semester I was amazed and deeply moved. I was amazed that fifth graders have such strong vocabulary in expressing how they feel, and deeply moved that I didn’t see a sign of hesitation when the students went around in a circle sharing what I perceived as very personal experiences and emotions. It was genuine, pure, and - I can’t believe I am using this word - raw. It made me question why us as adults struggle with being honest with how we feel, and also gave me a moment to reflect on emotions that I had never put words to or thought much about. While the sessions were mostly for my students, I find the whole lesson for me was “Have I actually been honest with myself and my feelings?”
I was listening to a podcast where Jenny Han, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the To All the Boys I've Loved Before series, noted that as a kid of immigrants or minority we develop this superpower of being hyper attuned to people around us as we go back and forth with different cultures and we have better senses in reading the room. She describes it as a blessing - we are acutely aware of the feelings of those around us and it makes us great storytellers. But I also see it as a curse - we may overcompensate for others and end up suppressing our own feelings and emotions. This all rings true for me as I’ve grown to be ultra sensitive in reading others and ultimately getting good at hiding my true feelings, at least to new people I meet. Overtime I may have put on this protective shield - to protect myself from being vulnerable, but also deprived myself of moments for reflection.
Maybe as my new year’s resolution and a change for the start of the new decade, I’ll give myself a little more breathing room to develop my feelings and allow myself to truly embrace those emotions. What if, for once I try not to look at myself through the lenses of others and give myself a little bit more credit for being human, and just being who I am? Maybe I then be someone who isn’t ashamed to cry at work because she feels frustrated, someone who is upset at the development of current events and shares her thoughts, or just someone who exercises a bit more self-care and declares more ME time.
“Accept yourself as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, because it goes against your training, education, your culture, From the very beginning you have been told how you should be: nobody has ever told you that you are good as you are.”