For as long as I can remember, I have always had big feelings. In a perfect world, I would love to tell you that not only do I have big feelings, but I have always known how to respect them, express them, or tend to them. Spoiler alert: I cannot say this.
I don't think the world is built to organically support humans (of any age) who have big feelings. The world's focus on "grin and bear it" and "just put that right under the rug" is palpable. I felt it since I was a child. In the fifth grade, it wasn't just my classmates who felt uncomfortable or overwhelmed by my big feelings, but my teachers, too.
It created an unsafe place to be myself, so I stopped. I still had really big feelings, but I kept them locked up in a safe. It's taking me years to open it back up. I grew up in the '90s, though. It's 2024 now, and I think the world is slightly different. Our collective emotional dictionary has expanded, and there are more resources than ever. We've gone from denying we ever had big feelings to embracing every subtle feeling or shift in mood.
Yet, I still think the world isn't built to organically support humans with big feelings. It just uses different tools or pathways to help redirect or obscure those feelings. There's the face mask that helps you feel good on the outside so you feel better on the inside. The wellness retreats that promise to kickstart a journey that just turns into a form of distraction.
Since I started working in the wellness space over a decade ago, I've noticed how much talking about mental health, wellness, and self-care has gone hand in hand with pushing consumer products, books, or resources meant to make you the best version of who you are.
I've spent the last year writing a middle-grade novel about a girl with big feelings following her mom's death. While putting her character down on paper, I also sat with my perceptions around big feelings. I didn't want her to be the best version of herself. Instead, she is the truest version of herself following life inputs she couldn't control but still had to deal with. She is not a victim of her circumstances but is molded by them.
As an adult who still has big feelings, writing her helped me practice more self-acceptance. Every life experience or onslaught of big feelings helps mold me or drops a pin on where I have to focus my attention, but I'm not defined or confined by them.
None of us are.
I do believe that the current culture around wellness and mental health is better than the one I grew up in, but I think it's all bells and whistles atop what matters — learning to sit with yourself. I'm not an expert. I go to therapy once a week and probably will forever because I have loud voices and big hurdles that create static in my connection to myself if I'm not exerting energy in listening. I have to try (really hard some days) to be okay with being an adult with really big feelings.
You get to create your formula for existing as an adult with really big feelings. I love books and prioritizing my physical and mental health. I also like meeting other people, seeing what tools work for them, and remembering that I don't have to inherit them as my own. We can be a part of the same community without living the same trend-driven life.