Gutting the guilt

I feel a lot of repressed guilt. I don't know when the habit of feeling this way began, but whenever I have lots of free time on my hands I feel guilty for being quote unquote unproductive.

For example, today is Memorial Day here in the US. I did not go to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram to copy and paste a meme like everybody else acknowledging our fallen soldiers or go out to grave sites to plant flowers; I did not do any studying, reading, or exercising or getting outside to appreciate the sun and warmth we've been much deprived of all winter. Here's what I did do: I lay in my bed most of today, scrolled social media a little, took a quiz which supposedly revealed my hidden self, read an article written by Deepak Chopra, and watched a few YouTube videos; one containing interesting facts about sperm, and a few others about astrology. In other words, I did exactly what I wanted to do. If I didn't want to do it, I would have done something else. Yet I felt guilty for not doing something else. It's as if I have a father figure in my head that scolds me and tells me how undisciplined and unproductive I am, and reminds me that the clock of life is ticking.

Where does this constant need to produce in order to feel approval come from? Could it be the conditioning of everyday life experienced in the outside world boiling over into my personal life? My personal time should be for ME to just be: to not have to think, to not have to produce, to not have to vie for the approval or acceptance from any outside force.

I think I know what the truth is. I am constantly reminded of my mortality and there is a fear of dying without having left my mark on the world somehow. The lyrics of Beyonce's Diane Warren penned theme "I Was Here" sums it up. When I probe into it further, I think this fear is really a reflection of my feeling unacknowledged and a false belief that I'm only worthy of praise and approval if I produce something of value for others. I think that if I can get to the root of this need to feel acknowledged and purge myself of it, then I won't feel guilty for being "unproductive."

I'm writing this not for anybody else but myself, to allow myself the freedom to just be. I feel like I still have some ways to go into fully accepting myself for who I truly am, but each day brings a revelation to help me get there.

Feeling My Way Through Life

"All I know is that I exist, and that I feel things"

Those were the words spoken to God that flowed through my tears on an unusually chilly, yet lonely spring night as I lay in my bed, swallowed up by darkness and the loudness of the world's silence. I was trying to go to sleep after a failed attempt to silence the nagging fear in the pit of my gut. I had reached a point of desperation and I was finally verbally acknowledging God again. For a long time, I had stopped talking out loud to God, because I reached a point in which I felt my words were empty. My feelings did not match my words and the prayers felt insincere, almost mechanical. But on this particular night, they found themselves fully aligned again.

"What good are my feelings?" They were wearing me out. What was I feeling about now? Perhaps something said during conversation I had with a guy that I secretly longed to be in a committed relationship with. Or maybe it was the antsy feeling I felt lately each time I talked to him. That antsy feeling was my secret desire to be the center of attention, which he certainly was NOT making me out to be; instead our conversations were centered around him and I wanted to find a way to get off of the phone. I am emotionally sensitive. I don't think I was ever taught how to manage my sensitivity. This is something I've had to discover through experience. I find myself easily rocked by the words of others, good or bad. My attitude toward myself easily colored and imposed upon by how I assume others perceive me, and me pondering how I feel about this. This is the epiphany I came to that night I cried to God. I feel my way through life. I remember people not necessarily by how they look, but by the way their words and overall presence make me feel. I remember movies, songs, political and social events, dates and years not by the specifics of what took place during them, but by my general feelings after I lived through them. "2011 was a good year", not because it was actually a great year, but because my memory recalls good feelings.

I would say over the past three years of my life, I attempted to embody the words of the people who had the greatest influence on me. These would be folks I were connected to though social media; some I knew personally and others I'd ever met. Their words felt like something hard, cold and stern. Like a thick, black line that is drawn on a white piece of paper. Boundaries. Unemotional. Logic. But this was unnatural and opposite of what I am at my core. That night in my bed with my tears was the beginning of a series of steps leading me to the end of denying myself; a small victory in the conflict between my inner being and the outer shell I presented to the world.

I'm so entangled in my feelings that it becomes hard to separate them from who I am. My feelings come from me, but they are not me. Yet they are an extension of me; they are deep, they are passionate, they are strong, and they are like the element of water. Water is complex. It can be refreshing, healing. Or it can be forceful and deadly. Water can usher hidden things to the surface, or it can plunge them deep into the depths. So goes my feelings. So goes me.

I've always wanted someone to understand and appreciate this about me, to be unafraid to ride that wave with me and never leave. But to be fair I now think this expectation is unreasonable, particularly when there are times that I don't even understand myself.

"So what am I going to do about this?" I thought. "How can I utilize my feelings in a productive way?" I still hadn't reached the moment where I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. The start of Year 32 had ushered in a reality that feels harsh and finite so far. A reality that I will not be contained in this physical body forever. I try not to think about this but every now and then when I feel unaccomplished, unproductive, unfulfilled, my subconscious finds a way to remind me. Well, this is what happened that night in bed after the final tear dropped: I emptied out my sadness and it was replaced with annoyance and determination. I was determined to manage my feelings and confront the beliefs about myself that created the practice of trying to anticipate what others thought about me and caring so much about it.

Feelings can clue you in to the opportunity to self-heal, or they can be used to lead yourself down a road fogged with paranoia and gullibility. I choose the former, through courageous and disciplined action.