Don’t Let Your Sea of Emotions Drown You

One must ride the ebb and flow of your feelings

Welcome to a year of feeling the feelings. I have always said, this year is a roller coaster ride, and I am not a big fan of the roller coaster.

This year, name a feeling and you must have felt it. If it is a consolation, most people have and most of us will continue to feel a gamut of feelings because as long as you are alive, you will feel.

Years past, whenever I see a friend, it always starts this way, I would ask, “How are you doing?” But this year, I would ask, “How are you feeling?”

The first question is easy, most of us would answer back, “I’m ok, thank you.” The second question, this year, comes with a lot of pauses. A lot of hmms, a lot of hesitation, until you hear these words, “I’m coping.” Another pause, or a short laugh, or a long sigh, and comes a more honest answer, “I’m not ok.” And because we are emphatic by nature, they would ask you the same.

I was never this open with my feelings. I grew up locking up my feelings, keeping them to myself. It never did me any good. The years of isolation are still fresh on my mind. I embraced sadness like it was my second skin. The problem with someone who deals with sadness like myself, it affects the people around you.

It has become better through the years until a trigger comes unexpectedly. With friends, I have learned to be more open about my feelings. My closest friends know I go through not only sadness but depression.

This year is no different. One thing the pandemic teaches us is not to put too much effort into your future plans, because in an instant, all your plans can be blown away. I guess, that is why most life gurus, would tell you, to live in the present, because that’s all that there is, the present.

I am from a generation, when YOLO, wasn’t even a word. A word embraced by the millennials, YOLO, “You only live once,” and live in the moment. It is all that there is, the moment.

I have always found myself drowning in my own sea of emotions, even before the pandemic.

I have to be honest, I think a lot. I think of my past, the present, and the future. It is tiring and I end up with nothing and feeling stuck.

A few days ago, I saw my best friend. I haven’t seen him since the start of the lockdown. We would talk online, for a few minutes. I know, we both care for each other, even more during the pandemic.

It is different when you talk face to face, part of it, is we are of the same age. The Internet and this new technology that allows everyone to communicate online, came way after we started our friendship. When the word friend, means more than a person who likes you or follows you on social media.

I don't mean to undermine the friendships that started on social media. As with all relationships, both online and offline have to be nurtured and tested with time.

Our friendship grew through shared experiences. The long talks, the dinners, the coffee dates, the sleepovers, and yes, the hangovers.

When I saw my friend, our love for each other, remains the same. Even before, when I would be absent in his life because I have to isolate myself. He welcomes me with an open heart and open arms, whenever I’m ready again to be with friends.

A few things changed, some protocols need to be observed. Even the protocol in line with the new normal is an endless source of laughter and acceptance, that the world we live in now will never be the same again.

The conversation was more real, unlike the Zoom calls, or messenger chats, the warmth you feel, touches your skin. The laughter has a sound the reverberates in your soul, not the lol emojis you end up adding in your chat.

The dinner is over, here comes the fun part, more talks over alcohol. We were not planning to get drunk, we are, yes we uttered the word at the same time, “coping”, another set of laughter ensued.

We discussed everything, the pandemic, the people we lost this year, the coronavirus, and yes, the US elections.

My friend left these words when I began to pour out my feelings, “Don’t let your feeling drown you.”

Don't live your life according to what you are feeling, because feelings can become fickle.

It changes, like the sea even in its calmness, could mean a brewing storm.

Beneath the calmness, a brewing storm, in an instant, an angry sea. Which is why we can’t trust our feelings, a psychologist friend, tells me. A bit of advice, she would often remind me of, is to feel the feelings. This is when I first told her, I know what my problem is I think about my feelings.

Feel the feelings

I have become conscious of my feelings. I try not to allow them to make decisions for me. I don’t let anger, create more drama. I don’t make major decisions when I am angry. There are still times when I fail, and whenever I do, I feel bad, and I’m unkind to myself.

When I am sad, I try to let it flow, sadness can come from different sources, and whenever tears follow I welcome them. Tears release the sadness, and I stop thinking of the people or reasons why I’m feeling sad.

The pandemic is not the best time to drown in your feelings. The times we are in is aggravating. We can’t trust our feelings right now, in a time of great uncertainty.

But our feelings are all valid because feelings are what make us human.

Remember the feeling when you are in love with someone, we call it romantic love. It throws you off guard because you let your guard down. You focus on your feelings, and I am not saying it is bad, but that is how we start to spiral down when we are in love. In the same way, we can go spiraling down when we let ourselves drown in our emotions.

If you aren’t able to navigate romantic love very well, the person you’re in love with can control you. You only feel happy when you are with them or feel sad when you don’t see them, angry if you are disappointed or even anxious when you don’t hear from them.

See how your feelings can get out of control? The problem confounds when you act on your feelings. Can you be happy alone? Or you need someone to make you happy?

I know what sadness is like. I lived through sadness. The feeling of sadness overwhelms me and it drowns me in an ebb of despair.

A heavy cloud that hangs over my head. In my younger years, sadness was my defining feelings. And it stifled me, it kept me in a dark space, there were years when I had hardly been able to function, I isolated myself.

People can make you sad, experiences, and circumstances, and during the pandemic, they can happen all at the same time, leaving you emotionally fatigued.

Life is like being in the movies, in your own movie, you are the hero of your own story.

In the end, for you to be triumphant, you don’t let yourself drown in the sea of emotions. Each page of your story leads to the next chapter of your life.

I know, that for me to see the next chapter of my own life, I don't have to reign over my emotions or keep every feeling inside me. I have learned to accept my feelings, not to label them as good or bad. I know that they are fleeting because life is in constant motion.

Like the sea even in its calmness, it is alive, the water moves in every direction, like the water, you are where you need to be.

I see myself as a speck in the Universe. A drop of water, that while my feelings are real, everything, is but part of the evolution not of the sea but the ocean of emotions the whole of humanity treads.

Listen to my podcast on Spotify , thank you.