Permission to Feel

Being okay with not being okay

Feel as an act of reclamation of your wholeness.

— Octavia F. Raheem, author of Pause, Rest, Be

I sat cross-legged, trying to ignore a twinge under my right shoulder blade and the gradual numbing of my left calf. Halfway through an hour-long guided meditation, parts of my body were no longer content. My focus pinged between where it was supposed to be (my breath) and my discomforts — and for how much longer I’d have to endure them.

Then, the instructor surprised me. “We’ve been sitting here for a while, you’re probably uncomfortable” he said, walking among the 40 or so of us seated on the floor, eyes closed. “Turn your attention to the discomforts.” He told us to explicitly notice the unpleasant sensations in our bodies and, one at a time, concentrate on that particular area. “Use your breath,” he said, “imagine as if you’re breathing in and out of that painful place.”

I did my best to inhale and exhale from under my right shoulder blade, and fully focus on the feeling there. As if by magic, I experienced relief. Within seconds, the sensation of discomfort just dissipated. I travelled around my body, experiencing the same effect on different areas, amazed at this superpower the instructor helped me unearth.

“Notice what happens when you focus all of your attention on the place that hurts.”

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been pretty grumpy. My usual tactics of hiking, writing, swimming the storm cloud away haven’t been working and I thought back to this meditation experience. Something in me knew I had to turn toward the grouchiness, give it my full attention, listen for the messages it carried.

I’ve been getting to know the grouch already for some time. It’s this dense, cloudy negativity swirling in my head — and I emanate the storm. I’ve been told I look like a pouting child. I feel like one.

I think, oh it’s just a bad day, things will be better in the morning. But I’ve learned that if the feeling persists, I’m likely smothering some intense emotion.

Last week, I had my 3-year-old pout face on for a few days in a row. One morning, the angst felt particularly acute and I had a vague sense that I might be angry.

So on my morning walk through the rainforest, I took a trail away from the main road to find a good spot to yell.

I’m new to this — therapeutic yelling. And since, for me, the emotion tends to be deeply buried (and sometimes I’m not even sure if it’s there at all), I usually can’t yell with feeling right off the bat.

So I use a technique my friend, yoga teacher Jen Forshee, taught me. You start with a deep breath followed by a low pitched “ahhhhhh…” then raise the pitch until you reach a comfortable place to really crank up the volume and release: “AHHHHH!”

I have to do this in a forced sort of way quite a few times before I finally feel something bubbling up. I keep coaxing it out with my voice until the anger is there and I’m yelling for real.

Often, the root of the rage dawns on me during this process. Through my voice, what’s unconscious is made conscious — and now I can start to intentionally release it.

With the low “ahhhh,” I imagine gathering up the anger from deep within me. As I raise the pitch, it’s like I’m carrying it up through my abdomen, chest, throat; and as I YELL, it’s like I’m throwing it out of my mouth.

For a moment, I imagine someone hearing me, walking up the path and finding me there, yelling into the tree ferns. Thinking I’m crazy. And then I’m like, wait, this should be normal. If we did this instead of going about our days pretending we’re fine, maybe our repressed emotions wouldn’t sneak out and punish our innocent pets, kids, partners… ourselves.

I’ve done far too much pretending to be fine. I’ve stuffed emotions to keep the peace, to be liked, to not offend or threaten, to not be considered “too much.” Like women around the world who started meeting up to scream together, I’m trying to unlearn the oppression of my own feelings.

When I’m brave enough to be okay with not being okay — and let others see me there, too — I can stop being drained by trying to ignore the pain. Just as in the meditation, when I give my energy to it instead, I see my capacity for deep self-healing.

Notice what happens when you focus all of your attention on the place that hurts.

I turn back again and again to words I wrote during a prolonged period of feeling pretty miserable (and reading Pema Chödrön’s, When Things Fall Apart):

Maybe this is part of the process of letting go of an old version of me — the adolescent — and becoming the Woman.

The Woman knows that, no, everything is not just fine. She isn’t delusional, she doesn’t put on a face.

The Woman sees her pain. She accepts it, it is part of her — she expresses it.

She can be miserable. She is not wallowing. She is not out of control. She is not unwise. She is how she needs to be.

She knows other are worried for her, want her to be happy. She wants to be happy. But it’s okay if she isn’t right now.

She doesn't need blame. She doesn't need reasons. She doesn't need to talk herself into what she could do to make it better.

She needs to clench her whole body as tight — punch, kick, flail, scream. She needs to wail, sprawl on the floor, curl up in a ball.

She needs to let her whole self feel.

She needs to let herself feel whole.