Feelings...

I'm still feeling excited about this year. I'm just coming to the end of a period of counselling which has been very useful. It seems that although I've always been the person people go to with their problems, approachable and empathetic, in one sense it was all an act (I didn't know that).

I'd got to 48 without realising that I had mistaken thoughts for feelings, insight for empathy. To be fair, nobody else had spotted it either. I had to retreat into analysing and thinking as a little girl, when it was a bit too painful to face facts such as Mummy not really wanting me around. Because I have a good imagination, I've always been able to articulate my feelings - but in fact they were more... ideas about feelings.

This is hard to grasp, I know. When it first hit me I felt - felt - as though someone had thrown a bucket of ice cold water into my soul.

The fact is, though, that it had never really occurred to me (although I work with children to help them identify their feelings) that feelings are - well, felt.

I'm still not quite there, but I'm getting there. I can now identify anxiety in my chest as opposed to giving a long list of words describing it. I've not yet had many visceral sensations, which is SO weird because I have always seen myself as incredibly intuitive. But my intuition is in my head...


This perhaps explains at last why I always felt different. Since entering teaching I've often wondered if I was some kind of autistic child who miraculously grew out of it. Now I realised that I deliberately froze my feelings because it was much safer that way. I'm beginning to have more and more 'Derr!' moments when it hits me that feelings are called that because you FEEL them in your body. Not rocket science, but to me, Quantum Physics. (Literally - read Deepak Chopra!)


I'm sure it's not just me. Many people run from what's In There. It's just that I'd spent so many years thinking it all through that it never struck me that I was - thinking it through. I've talked this over with my daughters; I think I've spared one of them the trouble of going down this path!


I've certainly held back at times, aided and abetted by Evangelical Christianity. I forgave hurts blindly, never challenging those who inflicted them. I accepted emotional abuse and turned the other cheek for more. I strived to be Loving without tapping into the anger which led Christ to beat people up in the Temple. Above all, I tried to be Nice. Because I knew what Not Nice looked like, and I didn't want to let it out.


Now I feel safer. It's okay not to be Nice. I always knew that - in my head... now I Know it - in my heart.

As people go, I'm not a bad one. No more or less than most of the others on the planet, in fact. I'm spending time every day meditating on some thoughts of Deepak Chopra (from the book 'SynchroDestiny') and one of the main themes is that we reflect, and are reflected in, everyone on the planet.

It's a big thought, but a comforting one in many ways. I have always felt a deep, deep connection, almost indescribable in words (and therefore probably one of my longest-lived and most authentic emotions) to the world and its inhabitants. I've been puzzled for years about why, when I drive past old people and their dogs, I'm overwhelmed with sadness at their inevitable separation down the line. For decades I've counted certain trees amongst my greatest friends.

Does this make me mad? Perhaps, I suppose it depends who's judging.

All I know for sure is that it makes me ME. And that's a great way to approach 50, isn't it? Being the most Me I've ever been...