unspecified loss

thinking your feelings versus feeling your feelings

I think I'm missing a whole center with the way I try to feel grief

it's in my mind. and it's like I think that if I can get myself to cry, I'm feeling the feeling instead of intellectualizing it. it's like I think that if I can think about sad things to the point where it makes me cry, I'm "feeling." But I think maybe that's just going straight from the head center to the body center.

aaron said that feeling your feelings is like imagining that you're sitting with the feeling on the couch together. you're not talking, you're not doing anything, you're just sitting with it, like a friend.

when I try to do that...it's like there's a forcefield around the concept. I get bounced back away from it.

is crying the best I can do? is that better than having grief ONLY in my head? is it less genuine if I TRY to make myself cry, in order to...heal? do the right thing? does it not count? is it disingenuous? is it gross? wrong?

it must be better than refusing to encounter sadness at all, right? like at least I'm not totally suppressing it?

I don't know how to sit with these feelings. I don't know if I want to or not. and I don't know what the point is. why would bringing myself down—or even letting myself fall—be...productive? healthy?

I'm probably viewing this wrong, because when I typed "productive" something snagged in my mind. not everything has to be "PRODUCTIVE."

(but doesn't it? isn't it? wouldn't grieving properly BE productive?)

my chest feels heavy and sad. is that the heart center or the body center again?

am I thinking, or am I writing? am I performing? I never know. ember and I have that in common too.

but I don't think ember would even be sad.