It’s fine, I’m fine, everything is fine.

Why we don’t feel our feelings.

I am a super doer. You can ask anyone that knows me. I am a busy, high functioning, on the go kind of woman. 

My moto is to be practical and functional while always looking cute! 

I can joke about it now, because at this point in my healing journey I am much more intentional with said moto. And thankfully I’m now learning how to rest.

Before though, the “doing” was 100% a survival mechanism for me not to feel my feelings.

I’m fine. Really.

Look at me; I’m always put together, the kids are organized, the house is clean, laundry is done, home cooked meals are on the table, great relationships, amazing career. All the “things” were checked off.

And I was good at all of them. I still am.

But before I started to heal and learn to really feel my feelings, all I was doing was skipping through life on the surface.

Just like when you strategically throw the perfectly smooth rock onto a glass lake. It glides along the surface without very much effort at all. You watch as each skip produces its own beautiful ripple until the rock quietly sinks out of sight at the bottom of the lake. 

Everything is seemingly calm and beautiful with its own momentum, but there is a whole body of water underneath that is full of living things. 

I didn’t know that I was skipping at first, in fact, for years I was completely blind to it.

I did notice however that:

• I couldn’t sit still without feeling viscerally uncomfortable.

• I would constantly have a feeling of guilt pulling me in some direction, always.

• The idea of taking a nap made me belt out a Bah! at the mere suggestion of something so preposterous.

• I’d watch with envy and even embarrassment when a friend would easily cry while telling a story. I’d think to myself, how does she do that? I can’t do that.

Huh. 

Then, after feeling lost for a moment, I’d quickly busy myself again with producing all the pretty ripples that I knew so well. As if I was on autopilot. Actually, I was on autopilot.

That was (and ironically still is) my comfort zone. And for good reason. 

Let’s do a bit of a dive into my childhood to understand this better.

When I was 11, I was in IKEA shopping with my dad for new furniture.

My parents had just gotten a divorce, so we were picking things out for my new room in his condo. I remember being excited to put the cute, heart shaped comforter that I had chosen onto my brand-new twin sized bed!

At the check-out counter, my dad reached over, put his hand on my shoulder and said,

“Fifi (yup he still calls me that), there’s something wrong with me, with my heart. I’m going to go lie down in the car. Here’s my credit card.”

Uh, OK.

I remember standing there in disbelief and knowing in that millisecond that I had to act.

There was no room for me to be scared.

So, I stood up straight, smiled politely at the cashier, paid for everything with the card and I took our bags back to the parking lot.

Upon arrival at the car, I found my dad lying down in the back seat, clutching his chest.

He looked at me with straining, confident eyes and said,

“Here’s what we are going to do. I’m going to sit in the driver’s seat, you are going to sit on my lap and steer while I work the peddles and we are going to drive to the hospital” (which was thankfully quite close). 

And so, we drove like that to the hospital. Me on his lap and him manning the peddles. No big deal. I remember not blinking to question anything and only moving into capable action. I didn’t think for one second that it wasn’t safe or that I shouldn’t be doing it, or that we could die.

My dad needed me, he believed in me, and so naturally I felt I could do it. And I did. I was hyper aware of my surroundings. Hands gripping the steering wheel, 10 and 2 (I had watched my older brothers learn), eyes wide and ready until we thankfully pulled into the hospital parking lot, alive. 

Once we got there, I helped cradle him through the ER doors and announced to the nurses that my dad needed help. 

They whisked him away. 

What followed involved defibrillation, talks of him passing in muted tones by important adults, and several days of waiting.

I didn’t leave his side.

I watched the defibrillation.

I listened during said talks among the adults and I waited.

I didn’t cry. I was strong, calm and steadfast.

I heard things like,

“Your daughter is incredible. Most children wouldn’t be able to handle this. Look how calm and put together she is. She’s so strong, she saved his life.” 

In that moment, it was as if God reached down through the clouds and placed a heavy brand on my shoulders marked, “You Are Strong”.

I could feel it. 

I felt proud. 

Further down the line, when I was well into my teens, I witnessed a 2-year-old die at a campground.

A group of us were on an outdoor ED camping trip organized by our high school. Back then, it was common to use a chemical called benzene to clean barbeques. One of these said bottles was underneath a barbeque two campsites down from us.

We heard the screaming first. We dismissed it as being a wild animal yelping due to its repetitive and very rhythmic nature.

I’ll never forget that sound.

A little girl had innocently grabbed a bottle of benzene and had taken a big swig out of it.

The screaming was her mother.

We didn’t know this at the time, but when a human being drinks benzene the fumes penetrate the lungs and therefore death is imminent. 

Me and my circle of friends all tried desperately to save her life, but she succumbed to the poison on the way to the hospital and tragically, she passed away.

Her name was Anya.

Everyone was completely devastated. 

Except me.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t even feel real sadness.  

I remember thinking, there’s something wrong with me. Why aren’t I crying? Why don’t I even feel sad?

I knew that I was different from all my peers and that I should be crying and sad.

And I really couldn’t.

But, thanks to this disassociated version of myself, I was able to instead console and help everyone else.

Acting like their mother, I tended to each of them and was sure they were all ok. 

Afterwards, they all praised me and said things like;

“You were our rock; we couldn’t have done that without you.” 

Again, I felt that big and heavy hand reach through the clouds and land right on my shoulders. At this point, it started to feel familiar. Like it really was mine.

And again, I felt proud.

In that moment I chose to focus only on that feeling of pride.

I stopped questioning why I couldn’t cry, and I kept going. 

Ripple after ripple after ripple.

Skip, skip, skip.

Nurse, mom of four, attentive wife, friend, daughter, and sister.

Always available to everyone. Always strong and calm.

I felt important and confident. I pushed the thoughts of me being different away and instead I adopted this new persona in its entirety.

From that moment forward, I didn’t cry. I couldn’t cry.
I became a master at taking care of others and not feeling my feelings. 

Was I consciously aware of any of this? Nope. Did anyone notice or express concern? No. Did I instead get constant compliments and accolades for being strong? Yup. 

And so, it grew and grew, and I consequently lived further and further away from my insides. Everything was seemingly “great”.

It’s fine, I’m fine, everything is fine.

Until my insides caught up with the outside. 

Whoa. Hang on!

There it is…enter; anxiety, insomnia, racing thoughts, deep gut aches, panic attacks and feeling like I literally couldn’t stop.

Like a hamster on a wheel high on emotionless crack. 

Go go go. I’m fine. Go go go. Still fine. 

Shit, I’m exhausted just writing about it. 

My body was talking to me.

I reached out for help, and I found a counsellor, Tracy. 

One of the first questions she asked me was,

“And how did that make you feel?” 

Huh? What do you mean? I thought.

Then she said,

“That’s your homework for today. Pay attention to how things make you feel, then name them and write them down.” 

Oh god (insert eye roll), give me a break. Is this what I pay my counsellor for? What a waste of money…or so I thought.

What she could see that I was completely blind to, is that I was totally disassociated from my feelings. That I was “doing” my life. She knew there was a price to pay for me to keep skipping along the surface, while not truly honouring my feelings.

She knew the cost was my health, my body.

All the living things in my lake consequently started to stir.

They made waves and just like that, my rock couldn’t skip anymore. 

It sank.

And so did I.

Enter the dark night of the soul (or so they call it). I personally hate that saying, I find it witchy and dramatic. But anyway, you get the drift. 

It’s dark. 

It’s at the bottom. 

It’s scary.

For me that is where my real discomfort lives. At the bottom. A discomfort that I’ve never sat with. That I was desperately trying to swim away from.

A discomfort that we are all trying to escape from.

This is where the panic attacks live. Where the anxiety finds a permanent home and waits for us.

But here’s the beautiful thing,

Healing happens when we sit there.

That body of water and all its living things have always been there.

The panic attacks and the anxiety were beacons trying to get my attention to LOOK at the bottom. To feel all the feelings that I didn’t let myself feel for whatever reason. 

I was merely ignoring my feelings by staying up high. 

Feelings need to be felt.

They need to be heard, loved and held. 

That, my friends, is what healing is.

Looking at all the things that have happened to us, with love and curiosity. Allowing ourselves to FEEL what we couldn’t feel in the moment. This needs to happen in a safe place with someone we can trust, so that the feelings can come up and move through us. 

This to me, is why counselling is so important. 

It provides a safe place for us to re-parent ourselves in the present moment. 

So that we can heal and teach ourselves that we have our own backs. 

Is this easy? No. Does it take time? Fuck yes. I started seeing Tracy 8 years ago. 

But. The more we investigate the lake, the more we swim around and get to know it, the more we can stay in the lake. The beacons settle and what’s left is who we authentically are.

The best part is, once you can stay in your lake you get to really feel the depths of life. The big juicy joy, the deep sadness with the huge tears rolling down your cheeks and all the sticky bits in between. Otherwise, you aren’t really feeling any of it.

I was bawling my eyes out in one of my sessions with Tracy, begging her to help me make the hurt stop.

She said, “I know it seems counter-intuitive, but this is good Chantelle, it means that you are healing.”

In other words, if we can feel deeply and express ourselves equally as deeply, we are healing.

I can now nurse and be a mom without that invisible drive pushing me to keep “doing”. What was originally my survival mechanism has now become my superpower.

I’ve allowed myself to be that when I choose, instead of on autopilot or by my default “branding”.

I get to choose

• how much I let in or not (thank you boundaries).

• how to access my feelings.

• to express my feelings in a healthy way.

• and know the difference between being angry and being triggered.

• to feel the full range of feelings and know the difference between the big dramatic ones and the healthy rooted ones.

And I know that they are all valid.

For example, I can now have something happen to me that literally breaks my heart, and instead of picking up the phone and frantically calling all my people to “brain” my way through it (skipping on the surface) I stop and let myself cry. 

This is big for me. 34 years of not being able to comfortably feel.

Of carrying the ‘You Are Strong’ brand proudly on my chest and on my shoulders, every day. 

As the holistic psychologist says so brilliantly: “Crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system and lowers cortisol levels. Allow yourself to cry. It’s the bodies attempt at self-regulation.”

I am so proud to say that today, I can cry. I’m no longer in a constant state of dis-regulation.

I can rest. I can sit. That imaginary cog has stopped pushing me.

I still get tempted to skip. And some days, I choose to. Others, I don’t choose at all, and I fall right back into “doing”.

I have to consciously not “go there”. It’s a daily thing, a learning and strengthening of a new muscle. And I’m hella committed.

Is there a part of my mini self that has you thinking of something that you went through when you were a child? Where you had to act or be a certain way to survive a moment? That in that moment you put your feelings away for the greater good?

If we allow ourselves to go back and feel, we transcend the trauma and we heal it.

That’s what being an adult is all about.

So, keep going. You are doing f’ing amazing!

Keep learning and looking. Every little discovery is a win. Every break down and panic attack carries with it something beautiful that you get to learn about yourself. Something you get to heal so that you can feel it and then be free of it on the other side…ready to take on the next challenge.

Let’s stop skipping along the surface. Let’s learn not to always be “fine”. Get into the lake and try swimming. Even if it’s just starting with dipping our big toes in. That’s perfect too.

Look. Feel. Be.

And most importantly, cry. 

xo