You are Responsible for How You Feel
To some this is harsh. But being responsible for how you feel empowers you and doesn’t invalidate your feelings.
Feelings are complicated.
This is true for numerous reasons.
Feelings are a matter of both how and what. How you feel and what you feel can have very different meanings, and even conflict.
What are you feeling? This tends to be the name you put to the feeling you have. This can be challenging because there are lots of nuances in the description of what the feeling is. Angry and enraged are similar but have different meanings. Happy and ecstatic — same thing. What you are feeling can take on many shapes, colors, and sizes depending on your experience and other matters.
How are you feeling? This can be complicated because it sometimes defies definitions. Depression is a perfect example of this. Depression can feel like emptiness, disgust, sadness, disappointment, and an overall indescribable sensation of wrongness. But the how of the feeling of depression can be confusing, variable, and different in each circumstance.
That’s not even getting into how each of us feels the what and how of feelings uniquely.
