To Feel

Do we actually feel our emotions?

I ask because for a very long time I didn’t.

At work I felt calm. No racing thoughts. No visible distress. Just composed.

When emotions in the room were skyrocketing I didn’t escalate. I didn’t panic. I didn’t cry.

I morphed into a zen master.

Not really.

I think they call it dissociation.

Oops.

Somewhere along the way when emotions became too intense to handle I learned to detach. I could step outside of myself and observe instead of feel.

It looked like calm.

It was numbness.

Instead of saying “this is overwhelming” I floated six feet above my own body and watched it all unfold.

Why process emotions when you can levitate?

Maybe the feelings were too strong.

Maybe I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe them.

Maybe I believed talking about them was useless.

Maybe I thought no one would listen.

Whatever the reason I related to all of it.

For thirty years my coping strategy was simple: block and levitate.

It worked.

Until it didn’t.

Because while I was numb in the moment I was also storing everything. Every frustration. Every slight. Every swallowed sentence.

You can’t be the “weak one” in corporate life.

So I wasn’t.

But unexpressed emotions don’t disappear.

They accumulate.

After the identity collapse I hit rock bottom. And to get out of it I had to do something radical for me:

I had to say out loud how I actually felt.

My vocabulary improved.

It hurt.

It felt exposed.

But someone was listening.

And it wasn’t hopeless.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

When we keep everything inside — when we feel unseen or unheard and say nothing — it doesn’t make us strong.

It slowly erodes us.

Dissociation feels efficient in the moment.

It numbs the storm.

But when you unthaw everything is still there.

Unresolved.

Compounded.

Stacked in quiet piles.

You start saying “everything is fine” with a sharp edge in your voice.

I became sarcastic.

Resentful.

Sad.

A bundle of nerves at home.

Because I never expressed how I felt at work the smallest disturbance at home could trigger an explosion in 0.5 seconds.

That part scared me.

When you are a workaholic everything else becomes secondary. It feels like a badge of honor — but it’s a condition.

I used to tell myself I wanted balance.

But somehow I made it unattainable.

Now I understand something differently:

Feeling isn’t weakness.

Naming emotions isn’t drama.

It’s regulation.

And calm isn’t the absence of emotion.

It’s the ability to stay present while feeling it.

That’s the kind of calm I’m learning now.

Not levitating.

Standing.