We often think emotions are pretty straightforward. We're sad when something sad happens, stressed when we have a lot going on, angry when something is unjust, and so on.
But of course, it's not that simple. Emotions are a swirly mess of physical and mental, conscious and subconscious feelings, thoughts, and sensations. Some of them, we’re aware of, others we're blissfully ignorant about.
For years, I was going through life strung out on anxiety, thinking I was perfectly fine.
We push away grief we don't want to feel. We convince ourselves that our fear is actually wisdom. We bury stuff underneath other stuff. It's a total mess.
Half the time we can't put words to what we're feeling, and the other half we're not even aware that we're feeling certain things.
Learning to become more aware of my emotions, and managing them and my instinctive reactions to them is an ongoing journey. And to be fair, I still feel like a bit of a noob most of the time. I'll have days where I'm convinced that everything is honky dory, only to burst out in tears at a sappy little scene in a Netflix rom-com. While I do enjoy a good cry, it's definitely a sign that everything might not be so dory after all.
Art is a fantastic way to tap into our emotions. It lets us connect to the subconscious, and express ourselves without the need for words. We can put pen or brush to paper and just let it all out. And often times we'll be surprised what we find out…