Feeling Emotions: A Portal for Healing

I recently attended an Aimee Mann Concert where she covered her 2002 album “Lost in Space”. This album was everything for me when it was released. It is a highly emotional album, and Aimee herself called it “her most depressing album”. When I heard that she would be performing it in its entirety, I was all in.

I listened to this album the way that many people listened to albums in the past: the whole way through. I know this album forwards, backwards, and sideways. I can remember playing it as background music for small gatherings of friends. When one friend said, “wow, this album is so sad”, I immediately thought “is it?”. I suppose that I have a history of melancholy; depression runs in my family, and I have struggled with depressive bouts over the years.

After having my “re-awakening” in 2007, I began to do a lot of earnest work on myself. I became brave enough to look at my wounding, my shadow, and address my history. That process has not stopped. I continue to work on myself (and will continue to do this as long as I am alive). This internal work has not eradicated my pain or sorrow, but it has given me tools to work with my more challenging feelings. I am no longer afraid of facing them, and invite them in with curiosity as they show up.

Having said that, I find that in my older years, I have abandoned much of the music and environments that brought me joy in younger years. I see that I was drawn to incredibly dark things: horror films, very “heavy” music, being in mosh pits, only wearing black. I had so much anger and rage in my body, and it needed to find a way out—my outlet was music, watching films, art, and self expression. And there is nothing wrong with this! I simply was embodying my pain and expressing it creatively. Today, my vibration has simply shifted (and I choose to look at this as a shift rather than assign it a value), and is no longer in alignment with these things on a day to day basis. And I carry no judgment to others who express similarly as I did as a teen.

So why the yearning to hear this album performed now? I don’t have the pull towards other music of my youth in my adulthood, so why this album? Why now? I began to remember the time of the release of Lost in Space. It was post 9/11, and I was newlywed. It occurred to me when I was in the show, that this was a time in my life when I was highly masking. I was trying to be someone radically different than the person of my youth. I realized that even in my pain and anger of my earlier years, I was expressing myself authentically. Then I stopped all of that to fit in. To get a job, to get married and be worthy of love, to play a version of me that I thought was expected. No wonder I was so sad.

I sat in the aged audience that night in an intimate venue, and wept—the whole time. There is great sadness in the world today. There is sadness in life. Sadness in the fact that I chose to mask so heavily all of those years ago. There was an ocean of sadness in me. This sadness needed to be expressed. Have you ever watched a movie or show (that you have watched before) to emote? To get the opportunity to express something that you may be bottling up? I think it is OK to do this, especially if you also honor your needs for deeper work through talk therapy, journaling, grounding your body, mind, and spirit. Maybe as we do this, we are opening portals. Portals to release the pressure of the stored emotions.

What is your preferred pressure valve release? If you don’t know, start paying attention. Do you seek the comfort of familiar music, movies, books? Do you find that you are overly reactive to a situation (you react as though it's a boulder sized problem when it’s actually a pebble sized problem)? Perhaps your body is looking for ways to release any stored or unprocessed emotions. Just find a healthy way to release. Exercise, eating and resting well, journaling, working with a talk or somatic therapist, having mindful practices, and being in nature are simple and effective ways to care for yourself. If your emotions are not released, they will fester, and can lead to not only emotional issues, but issues in the physical body as well.

I think we often seek the perceived comfort of living in an even keeled manner, avoiding challenging emotions because we are afraid that our emotions will drag us down and we will never be able to return to “normalcy”. When I have regular grounding and clearing practices, and emote with the intention of releasing the emotions (as well as having my supports in place) I have an easier time navigating them. What if feeling through the feeling—whatever it may be—stretches our container to hold more joy? So that we stop being afraid of our deepest feelings? I believe that it is a worthy pursuit to explore.