“It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is.” W.B. Yeats
This quote struck when I came across it the other day.
It does take a long time to believe our feelings. I think I’ve lived most my life distrusting them. Feelings are reactions. Ergo, irrational. Ergo, not to be trusted. And so, off with her head!
I’ve lived in my head and ignored the stomach aches, the ugghhh! feelings, the drabby black and whiteness of life in my mind’s eye when, CLEARLY, things aren’t right. And my feelings are falling over themselves to wave flags at me.
It’s an imprecise sport, learning to believe feelings. Messy. Is my anger at someone about my being angry with them. Sometimes, when I truly feel into it, it’s regret. Or it’s disappointment in myself because their action reminds me of a failing of my own.
When people say, “what are you feeling right now”, it shits me. I don’t always know. I’m still learning to trust that they work. And it conjures such loose, sappishness.