We live in a world that moves too quickly for feelings.
We rush through our days, chasing tasks, filling silences, scrolling to distract ourselves. And in all that noise, our emotions often get left behind.
They don't disappear, of course, they pile up quietly in the background, unspoken and unattended. Until eventually, they find their way out.
It may manifest as irritability that you can't explain. It's exhaustion that no amount of sleep can fix. In that vague, unsettling sense, something isn't quite right.
And so often, when we reach that breaking point, the world around us offers solutions, advice, fixes, distractions, when what we really need is permission to pause and say, 'I feel sad.'
Or: I feel afraid.
Or even: I feel tender, and I don't know why.
That act of naming what is real doesn't magically solve everything. But it does change everything. Because once you name a feeling, you can hold it. And when you hold it with care, you begin to soften towards it. You start, slowly, to heal.
Psychologists call this "affect labelling", the practice of putting words to what we feel. Studies show that naming an emotion actually calms the amygdala, the part of the brain that registers fear and stress.
In other words, the simple sentence "I feel anxious" tells your nervous system, "I see you; you're safe."
The chaos of the feeling is met with recognition, and that recognition is soothing.
But many of us never learned this. We were taught instead to mistrust our feelings. To toughen up. To push them aside. To prize rational thought over "irrational" emotion. We built fences around our inner landscapes in the hope that neatness would equal safety.
The truth is, emotions don't work like that. They aren't linear. They don't file in one by one, waiting for their turn. You can feel joy and grief in the same breath, love and resentment in the same relationship, relief and regret in the same hour. And that's not a failure, it's simply the truth of being human.
As Brené Brown reminds us, "We cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive ones."
When we fence out sadness or anger, we also fence out joy, tenderness, and connection. The goal isn't to organise or control our emotions, it's to acknowledge them.
The Swedish writer Jonatan Mårtensson put it beautifully: "Feelings are much like waves. We can't stop them from coming, but we can choose which ones to surf."
But before you can choose, you first have to notice the wave. You have to give it a name.
"I feel anxious."
"I feel lonely."
"I feel proud."
These small phrases may not look powerful on paper, but they create space. They invite breath into the tightness. They remind you: I am listening to myself.
And crucially, you don't need to explain or justify your emotions. You don't have to make them neat or rational. Emotions don't need to be reasonable to be real. You have to let them be true.
This is how we return to ourselves. Not by fixing, not by problem-solving, but by feeling. By slowing down enough to notice the quiet messengers within us and by daring to name them out loud.
Today, instead of rushing past the quiet ache you feel, pause. I feel tired. I feel hopeful. I feel uncertain. Whatever it is, let it be spoken.
Because the path to healing doesn't begin with a solution, it starts with honesty. It begins with naming the truth. And from there, everything else can unfold.
Thank you for reading. Your time and attention mean everything. This essay is free, but you can always buy me coffee or visit my shop to support my work. For more thoughts and short notes, please find me on Instagram.