The Value of Letting Yourself 'Feel'

I am fast approaching the publication date of my first novel, and I have stumbled upon a curious discovery: I love to feel.

It sounds strange at first, but what I am speaking of isn't necessarily sensory in nature. I'm not talking about 'pleasure'. I'm talking about 'emotions'. And I have realized how deliciously cathartic it is to indulge in emotions on a regular basis. Through my characters I express outrage at things that offend me. I shudder at the thought of ideas that frighten me, and I relish in shedding tears over things that--to this day--still break my heart.

My affinity towards feeling and expressing emotions has nourished my creativity. It has led me through doors of acting studios, and pushed me beyond the threshold of imagining scenarios, to transcribing them onto paper.

It seems to me, that most of us are terrified of feelings unless they are centered around joy, pride, and other self-affirming concepts. Some of us tend to drown out our emotions with 'socially acceptable' numbing agents like alcohol, or simply stuff what we feel in a box, lock it, and slide it under our beds. It is one thing to wallow is self-propagated misery--I'm not condoning that--and another entirely to acknowledge what is moving you to your core, address it, sublimate it, and grow from it.

I feel as though a lot of my wounds have healed ever since I commenced my journey as an aspiring author. I feel as though I have grown to the point where I find beauty in sorrow, passion in anger, and hope in despair, and I would not have been able to do so had I continued to fear the dipping of the sinusoidal curve.

Life without its peaks and valleys is a flat line--like the kind you find on a heart-rate monitor at the hospital. Do not simply take the bad as a necessary evil contrasting the good. Appreciate the bad, and you'll realize it's all good.

Love, and joy of all kinds to you all!