Feelings

It has been awhile. I have been too busy reading and cleaning my house from the wonderful mess that is summer. I have been organizing a space almost every weekday and it has made me so happy to have a clean laundry room again and an organized shoe closet and I even cleaned out my freezer. I am half way on my list but decided today to take a break and do some writing.

I have been thinking a lot about feelings lately. A month or so ago I had an interaction with a good friend that left me feeling hurt and left out and unappreciated or even liked. For days I thought about it and it bothered me. I wasn't super friendly when I saw her because I was allowing my hurt feelings to let me step back from the relationship. As a kid I was always accused of being too sensitive so I have worked hard as an adult to not stew or stress about every interaction I have. I think I've done a good job learning to let go of these kinds of situations and move on and I can usually do that, but this time it really hurt. So I debated what to do. Do I talk to her and tell her how I feel or do I just give it some more time and move on? I feel that relationships should be open and that honest communication is key to any good connection with someone. But we also don't need to complain or make the other person feel badly and I think there are times you just need to give your friend or spouse the benefit of the doubt and move on. The trick, I suppose, is knowing what is appropriate for each situation.

In the end, I decided to get over it without talking to her, even if it did take more time. Then a situation presented itself where she brought it up and we did talk about it and I was so glad we did because we had both completely misunderstood each other. Some poor communication led to both of us having hurt feelings and I was so grateful for the chance to figure it out and learn more about each other. I feel like it brought us closer as friends and hopefully opened up the way for us to be more honest and clear with each other.

I had a similar situation with my husband. He had done something that left me feeling really disappointed and kind of let down. Normally I would have told him right away so that we could work it out but with so much pressure from work and church and family, he feels like he is failing at everything he is doing and I worried about making him feel badly. I decided to just let it go. But it festered and was in the back of my mind and made it hard for me to act normally around him. He finally asked what was wrong and then actually figured out right away what it was because he knows me so well. We discussed the situation and both felt better afterwards. He asked me why I hadn't just said something and I told him why and he said he would rather have me be honest with him than to act differently and let it affect our relationship.

Everyone is so different so maybe this is just a lesson learned for me but it seems that talking over feelings with the people you care about most is the best way to deal with them; that seems to be the only way I can truly let them go unless given a lot of time. I suppose some people are good at faking how they feel but I'm not one of them so it is best for me to just get it out in the open and deal with it or else I tend to pull away. The best relationships are open and honest and where you can say things like "that really hurt" and the other person can apologize or help you see their point of view or even just come to understand you better. Or where you can say, I am so annoyed or happy or relieved or stressed or whatever because that person loves you or cares about you and that includes all of your feelings. There is definitely a thin line between open communication and complaining, whining, or pessimism but I know I feel closest to the people who share with me and talk to me about real life stuff instead of keeping our friendship on the surface. It can be tough to be vulnerable and I know I can only do so with my spouse and really close friends but those connections are what support me the most. 

I still find myself wondering if it is important to share every feeling or is every feeling valid? Shouldn't we have self-control and learn to school our feelings? There are plenty of situations where it probably is best to just get over it, let go, move on, and choose to stop having certain feelings like jealousy or anger or frustration. A friend, who is a man, told me once it was just better not to have any feelings and while I am pretty sure he was joking, there is some truth to the wonderfulness of being calm and steady. My husband and I were recently presented with a situation where I was really upset but he should have been even more so and yet, he stayed so quiet. When I asked him about it later he told me he was choosing not to be hurt or angry and I marveled at his ability to do so.

But we were given these feelings for a reason by a loving God so there is probably a lot to learn from governing our feelings and learning to love, feel empathy and the sweetness of forgiveness.  I'm grateful to have feelings that run deep and make me sensitive to others, despite how challenging it can be at times to navigate the proper way to deal with them. I suppose someday I'll figure it out and that will be a pretty great feeling.