I’ve arrived at a turning point in my emotional world- or perhaps, I’ve slipped into a new stream altogether. Words can’t quite hold the weight of what I’ve been experiencing but I feel compelled to try and translate this felt sense into language.

For much of my life, when an emotion would arise, it would swallow me whole- like a wave. I could not see beyond the feeling. I could understand quite acutely why I might be feeling that way, tracing the emotional origin with precision- but I was still stuck in something more pervasive: a kind of mood, in the Heideggerian sense. The world itself felt different. Everything was coloured by that internal atmosphere, as though the mood wasn’t just in me, but throughout everything I encountered. Eventually I would come out of this feeling, this thinking, this mood, but not without much exhaustion.

These past few… weeks (?) something rather unusual has been happening. For context, I am in the midst of a big life transition- a time where what I thought would happen hasn’t, and the existential rug has been firmly pulled from beneath me. It’s a great place to be, albeit a very emotionally challenging one- but that’s for another blog post.

So, this period I’m in at the moment elicits many emotions, many difficult emotions. Yet, lately, when these colossal waves of emotion have approached me recently, they’ve washed through me. I think that’s the best way I can describe it, that my emotions have flown, like water, through me. They don’t stick. I don’t ruminate.

I notice I’ve been using water analogies a lot, which is no surprise as much of this has taken place in water, come to think of it.

I’ve been largely suspicious of this shift, as a naturally curious and critical being, I have questioned whether I may be denying myself the emotional experience of letting them in- but I do let them in, they just don’t stay for very long. I then considered, it must be that the feelings are too overwhelming and so I’m shutting down in the face of them- but no, this explanation also does not fit.

When I spoke to a loved one about this, they asked what’s allowing this shift. A great question. What I came up with is: I no longer need the emotion to stay– but I also don’t need it to go. When a thought arises and evokes an emotional response, I check in: is this something I can act on? Is it fixed? Regardless of the answer, there’s this subtle acceptance: this is how I feel now, not how I’ll feel always. I welcome the feeling. And in that welcoming, it’s like the emotion doesn’t need to stay. She can visit me for a while and then be on her way. I know she’ll come back and knowing that doesn’t feel good or bad- just neutral.

Where I had previously known, cognitively, that emotional states are not permanent, I’ve now begun to truly integrate that knowing into my being- if you know what I mean.

Further Reading

Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and Time (J. Stambaugh, Trans.; D. J. Schmidt, Rev. Ed.). State University of New York Press. (Original work published 1927)

See especially Section 1, Chapter 5 on Stimmung (mood/attunement). Heidegger presents mood as a foundational way of disclosing the world- not a passive feeling but a state of being in the world.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception

Spinelli, E. (2007). Practising Existential Psychotherapy: The Relational World.