Our Big Feelings

This week, I got cancelled on.

It was one of those things where I didn’t know the person very well. For a long time, yes. Very well? No.

It was one of those things that should have been pretty benign. Something came up. Shit happens. And it was one of those things that I usually feel pretty benign about. Something came up. Shit happens. I’m usually cool as hell about this sorta stuff.

But for whatever reason, my brain spun off the rails and went into Big Feelings mode. Aren’t I important? Doesn’t this person know I have a weird and undefined health issue and most of my free time is now split between staring into space in hospital waiting rooms and trying to make shit as normal as I can for myself? Can’t this person see I’m valuable as fuck?

It didn’t make sense, not even to my own self and I was the one giving myself Big Feelings. From myself to myself.

I decided to give myself Big Feelings about something that didn’t really matter. Something that could easily be erased with a little intent along the lines of I’m-so-sorry-I-cancelled-out-and-you-matter-on-this-planet-to-me. But as always, we have no control over anyone or anything but our own selves, our own shit, and we can’t rely on the other humans to provide validation for us. So I stewed for a bit because I’m human and that’s what we do sometimes.

See what we do to ourselves?

Everybody can relate to Big Feelings because we all have them about something at some points in our lives. Some of us have them every day about many somethings. I feel I dodged a lot of Big Feelings by just being aware of the fact I shouldn’t give much credence to what the other humans decide regarding me because I’m just me and I received the gift of restraining that crazy train line of thinking with meditation and lots of knowing-myself-to-control-just-who-the-fuck-the-world-gets-when-I’m-on-the-scene-and-I-can’t-believe-this-person-doesn’t-recognize-my-worth-and-who-the-hell-is-this-person-to-cancel-on-me…

See what happens with Big Feelings?

I tried to reason with myself that I was having my Big Feelings extravaganza because I get validation and affection all over the place and I hear “I love you” from at least several people a day and just because this person didn’t want to spend time with me at that one moment in time doesn’t make me a loser-wait-am-I-loser-does-this-person-suddenly-think-I’m-a-loser…

See?

And we do it to ourselves.

Big Feelings is just another label for doubt. And doubting ourselves is the worst. And we all do it.

To ourselves.

Why?

Nearly everything we humans feel is based on either love or fear. Most of that love and fear is rooted in past experiences, positive or negative, when we were little with our parents or trusted people. Who are also humans with the immense capacity to screw us up and make mistakes like humans do. At the end of the day we’re all just winging it.

From the past experiences we form our attachment styles. Some of us had parents and people in our early lives who sorta ignored us, probably without meaning to. Some of us had parents and people who were up our butts every minute and never gave us peace, probably without meaning to. Their love and fear trickled down to us and started forming our own loves and fears and how we process the outside world. Our attachment styles are how we try to get into the other humans’ heads to glimpse into what they might think of us. We want to be loved and accepted but we doubt ourselves too much to think we’re wholly lovable or worthy of total acceptance.

Then we bestow that mess onto the next generation.

Big Feelings are tangled up in all that. We have fears about how the outside humans feel about our inside selves, we doubt the hell out of ourselves even though we think we’re the only ones who do, so we think everyone else can see that and have doubts about us too. And it doesn’t matter how smart or hot or amazing the other humans think we are or how well we think we’re keeping our LOVE ME desires under wraps. When somebody shows us they’d rather do something else besides talk to us, hang out with us, be near us…we sometimes feel Big Feelings about it regardless of their reasons. And sometimes with the same exact person we have Big Feelings about in regards to their decision to not hang out one time…that usually has zero to do with us…we don’t give a damn the other times they bail.

Big Feelings spring from those attachment styles we form from all the love and fear and doubt we absorb as kids. Once I went down that rabbit hole I realized that I freaking love attention because I got a lot in my formative years and for some reason occasionally my brain processes the lack thereof as a red flag where there is none. Some people are the exact opposite and see any overt attention toward them as the red flag because their attachment style is to avoid needy losers who really just like them a whole bunch and want to show it. Some people are suspicious about anybody who thinks or feels any differently than they do because we all really enjoy being right and spend our entire lives convincing ourselves of our supreme rightness so we never have to feel wrong.

Big Feelings, self-doubt, attachment styles. They’re bitches.

And we project our opinions on how the other humans SHOULD be acting toward us onto them instead of understanding that everybody’s got their priorities, everybody’s got their stuff, and 99.9% of the time it has 0% to do with us.

So how do we get to our peaceful place from the crazy we give ourselves within the confines of our own damn brains for no reason?

I mean, everybody’s different, so throwing water on the Big Feelings inferno looks different for everybody. For me, taking a minute to remind myself that this person gave me a great reason why they cancelled and it really did have nothing to do with me and they will call again at some point to reschedule was enough. Some people need an extra step or two of comforting and sometimes I do too. Somewhere along the lines of self-affirmation and a pint of ice cream with all the milkfat and maybe going outside for a few deep breaths to get a little perspective.

But at the end of the day I was giving myself my own Big Feelings from my own opinions from my own perspective from my own self-doubt. And we all do it because that’s what humans do. We all want to be wanted. We all want to be accepted. We all want to be loved.

But we can’t rely on the other humans to provide it for us. Other humans are an unreliable source. They’re busy trying to curb their own Big Feelings. It’s a matter of needing to take responsibility for our own Big Feelings and not expecting other people to behave in ways that allow us to avoid our demons.

We’ve gotta provide our own internal cheering section for when we’re deep in our Big Feelings. We need to recognize that our brains are all primarily the same but that doesn’t mean our priorities and our desires are. And it doesn’t mean that if some shit doesn’t go down the way we wanted it to, we’re worthless.

Big Feelings blow, but we all have them. We’re human and it’s part of the human baggage we carry. I wish I could write something meaningful and complete here as to how we can all counter it, but I can’t. I’m human too, and I also have Big Feelings that are unexplainable and part of my own story.

I think just knowing we all have them is most of the battle. It’s helpful to know that when we feel doubtful and unloved and some kinda way that the rest of the world sometimes feels that way too about themselves.

We all have Big Feelings. We’ve all gotta split the difference between honoring them and realizing that they spring from the well of the human condition end of story.

We all have them. We’re never alone when we do. We’re in this thing together.