On big Emotions

We live in an age of intellectual acceleration. We learn fast. We connect the dots. We fill the gaps. Our brains run at full speed; our minds are on fire.

And yet, our hearts and souls remain undernourished, longing for emotional depth. We create opportunities to connect but seem unable to truly experience the present moment. We master the emotional vocabulary but are too afraid to feel what we are brave enough to name.

Authentic connection asks us to be vulnerable: to lean into uncertainty and emotional exposure. Deep down we know this, but still – we find a way to trick ourselves out of feeling the big emotions.

Why?

Because we are afraid of losing control.

Big emotions appear in big waves – they cannot be planned, predicted, designed, or tailored. We simply don’t know how to welcome them, manoeuvre their force, or navigate their intensity.

We might have grown up with parents who themselves were afraid of – or ashamed for – having big emotions. Who did not learn how to navigate them, and therefore did not have a ‘map’ ready to help us navigate ours. We might have been left alone with our intense and unprocessed emotions.

Abandoned to deal with them on our own.

Hiding in our rooms, feeling overwhelmed, helpless, ashamed, and lonely. “Surely, there must be something wrong with me for feeling like that?”, we might have thought, crying tears of confusion.

This younger part of us might be activated each time we find ourselves on the verge of experiencing big emotions in the here and now, as adults. We might feel the same helplessness and shame we felt back then. We protect ourselves from falling into this vulnerable state again. We withdraw. We disengage emotionally.

But it’s time to break the spell of the past. Time to take our younger self into our arms, offering comfort and reassurance that there is nothing wrong with having big emotions. That it is safe to be vulnerable. That it is safe to feel. Everything.

To heal by giving ourselves permission to let the waves of big emotions wash over us and through us. To absorb them. To be them – for as long as they last. Until they ebb away. Because they will. Every wave does, eventually.