I Be Knowin’ :)

Hi again, my lovelies!

I’m planning on increasing the amount of posts to this blog. For reasons I will share here soon. For now, 2 posts a week seem reasonable. If it becomes too much, let me know. (ya?)

I’m here to talk about an incident that happened a few weeks ago. With this site, I see that the impact of even the smallest of comments is expanding. It’s nice to know that I now give things more thought than I would have before establishing this page, especially since one of the main reasons I started it was for “personal development”.

So, ya, let’s start with a thank you this time. For the new followers and the OG’s, you help me put time and effort into myself. I needed that. I hope you, too, find time to reflect on these topics.

Today, I’ll be speaking of emotions. As a person who is obsessed with trying to control them, I think I might have gone too far.

My two closest friends and I were driving the other night after a highly “energy-draining” event. It was time for us to unwind after spending the entire night dancing, shouting our lungs out, and jumping around at a concert. Naturally, emotions begin to surface at this hour (midnight car rides) with loved ones.

As a group of 3 very stubborn girls, we decided a long time ago that whenever we’re in the car together, a phone would go around between us choosing songs. This ride, the theme was sad songs. We began competing over who would play the saddest song known to man. 

One of them gave us an introduction into this one particular song, “Be ready to have your heart broken” she said before playing it. I won’t lie; the song had a strong chance of being the saddest song ever written. The lyrics were quite depressing. For my Arabic readers, I’ll drop a link below for you to listen. For my non-Arabic readers, let me just tell you the name of the song: “Wrong Love”, I believe that adequately conveys the hurt that lies behind it.

Link: 

Anyway, she played the song, we listened. In the middle of it, she pauses it, peers her head between the front chairs and directs her gaze at me. Unpleased. She goes, “FFB, I feel like you lost your ‘sense of feeling’!”, I turn around, unamused, “what the hell do you mean now?”. She looks at our other friend, who at this point is agreeing with her and has the audacity to add, “She’s right, you used to feel so much more”.

Of course, me being me, I laughed, threw a sarcastic comment that I won’t share here, added “I don’t know!” (I be knowin’) and moved on (not really).

A few minutes later I took my phone out from under my thighs and typed “you lost your sense of feeling” into my notes app and slid it right back. Knowing very well I will have to review myself later and maybe create a blog post out of it. (Hi! I made it. But wow, long introduction, sorry.)

Let us begin.

Have you ever felt like you’re just going through the motions, without any real emotional attachment to the things happening around you? As if you’re numb to feelings and nothing really touches you on a deep, personal level? 

I had already put another idea to my notes app before this incident, which I believe complements this one. The word “mute” was all I wrote down and I recall that it was inspired by an instance when everyone around me was discussing an emotionally-charged subject while I simply felt detached and lacked the energy to engage. Not because I didn’t care at all, but rather because at the moment I didn’t care enough to do so. Which undoubtedly caused me to wonder (as I have been doing quite a bit lately) “what is wrong with me?” It wasn’t until later that I realized that my emotional numbness might be a coping mechanism for a past emotional turmoil.

***I feel compelled to tell you, readers, that these are merely personal speculations and no professional reviews were conducted. Please don’t take anything I say as factual. These are my thoughts.

I came to a conclusion that perhaps sometimes, when we experience intense emotions that we don’t know how to handle, our mind can shut down our ability to feel in order to protect us from being overwhelmed.

In my case, I had experienced some difficult situations this past year that had left me feeling raw and vulnerable. So my mind had created this emotional distance as a way of shielding myself from potential pain. (maybe, at least this is what makes most sense to me right now).

At first, I didn’t really see this as a problem. It allowed me to stay rational and level-headed in difficult situations. But as time went on, I started to realize that this numbness was causing me to miss out on a lot of the richness and depth of life. I wasn’t really experiencing the ‘umph!’, which is sad.

So, what are some things that we can do to connect more with our emotions?

• The first step, for me, was learning how to identify my emotions. For a long time I found it difficult to put a name to what I was feeling. I would just feel vaguely “off” and I couldn’t really pinpoint why, but as I started paying more attention to my internal state, I began to recognize the subtle differences between emotions. I learned to distinguish between sadness and anxiety, for example, or between excitement and nervousness. This helped me start to feel more in tune with my own emotional landscape.

• The second step was practicing mindfulness. I went back to meditating regularly, which helped me become more aware of my thoughts and feelings as they arose. I learned to observe them without judgment, just acknowledging them and letting them pass by. This helped me feel more present in the moment.

• Finally, I started making an effort to connect with people on a deeper emotional level. (something I was too afraid of doing in the past few months that I found myself isolating and pushing important people away). This was the hardest part for me, since I’ve grown so used to keeping my emotions at arm’s length. But as I started opening up and sharing my own emotions with close friends, I found that I started feeling more connected to them. It was like I was finally able to bridge the gap between myself and other people and to start experiencing life more fully.

It’s only my first month doing this, I’m still at the experimental stage. I do, however, think that it’s working. It brought up a few wrinkles from years ago too. I think I’m liking it here, even if there’s a teeny tiny monster screaming in the distance, reminding me that opening myself up would give me pleasure for now but would only double the expectancy of pain in the future.

I can honestly say, at this moment, I don’t really care about the future. I’ll get through it the way I did before, for now, let’s enjoy the moment! Fully! And foolishly.

Hold on!!! I love when this happens… I just reminded myself of one of my favorite quotes of all time.

“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” -Daisy from The Great Gatsby.

I will be a fool.

Peace out, dearests

And see you soon,

FFB