overwhelmed by the world? let’s feel it to heal it together💜🥹

Be like water, my friend
You shall find a way around, or through it
When nothing within us stays rigid
We decide the shape we're in
(& the waves we give🌊)
Beautiful Chorus

[@1chumley1]

Thank you for sharing this, Amy!
A few of things came to mind. First, I feel that I am at near to you on this journey. I am doing my practicum with a grief counseling organization, and one of our main touchstones is that "you need to feel it to heal it." This is quite an unfamiliar concept to many of us. We are aware on a subconscious level that expressing our feelings, especially sadness, fear and anxiety, makes us vulnerable. When we habitually calculate our expression, through words, body language, and countenance, for effect, it has psychological consequences. In a great many work settings, this outward emotional suppression must be extreme and almost perfect. So much of our communication is insincere that we can feel utterly alone even while engaged in conversation with someone.
I feel that capitalism necessitates our disconnectedness, as it rewards the glad-handed sales pitch to the point where a smile from a stranger leaves us suspicious of motive. The easy emotion of anger can be tapped for clicks and views, but with no solution or compassion. Capitalism also trumps altruism, and permits us to indulge the worst parts of our nature without judgement. Treating most others primarily as conduits for wealth certainly warps our relationships. It's no wonder that any act of giving is scoffed at in our society unless it is labeled with a religious affiliation.
Finally, thank you for actually demonstrating how to feel emotions for us! What an overlooked skill that should be more intuitive for some of us! After being in the military for 20 years, I am realizing how maladapted I have become. I will keep tuning in!

[@amycatwest]

Thank you so much for this comment & exploration, Andrew. I really appreciate your thoughts & sentiments here. The first part of what you share makes me think of a book (Intention by Andrew Wallas) I was just listening to this morning that talked about how a test done with mice demonstrated that there is epigenetic memory passed down the ancestral line for [at least] 7 generations. Despite mice not being exposed to the same stressor their ancestor was, they still carried the same trauma response when the stressor was introduced 7 generations down the line. When I think of this in the context of the historical suppression of emotion entrained within us through capitalcolonialism - dating back to ???? # of years even BEFORE the creation of the United States - it makes so much sense to me why it's a struggle. It is soooo encoded in our DNA to be afraid to feel. So, it makes SO much sense how & why feeling has become so UN-intuitive for many of us - myself included, until I began conscious & intentional about learning how. I think this perspective offers an important level of self compassion💜
You make such good points here about how capitalism exacerbates that entrainment. AND your direct experience just in this lifetime alone of literally being entrained by the military, within which feeling is a liability - so I imagine a key part of the training process is literally training people NOT to feel. Again I think there is a lot of reason to hold deep compassion for yourself here. I also believe all AMABS are actively conditioned not to feel in this culture (other than anger)...so the layers run deep. Learning, growing, and healing is ALWAYS possible - so that's the good news - but I think sometimes we can judge or pressure ourselves to not be where we're at, and I think understanding & validating WHY we're at where we're at (& thus responding with patience, & meeting ourselves where we're at like we'd meet a client -> compassion & unconditional positive regard) is a really essential piece of the process.
Just some thoughts that came to mind reading your comment🙏