what did you decide was too dramatic to feel?
somewhere along the way you learned to police your own feelings. something hurt, or mattered deeply, and you told yourself you were being dramatic. but the feeling didn't leave. it just went underground.
every day there's one live question, the same for everyone. answer it anonymously, see what other people said. it's all gone in seven days.
answer today's question →write down the feeling you dismissed. what was the situation? what did you actually feel before you talked yourself out of it? try to describe the raw version, the one that existed for a few seconds before the internal editor arrived and said it was too much. then write about where you learned that response. who taught you that certain feelings were excessive? was it a person, a pattern, a family rule? write a few lines about what it would be like to let the feeling stand as it was, unedited and undismissed. you're not being dramatic. you're just being honest.
- write the feeling in its full, uncensored form, the version you wouldn't say out loud.
- ask whose voice it is that tells you you're being too much.
- consider what changes if this feeling was exactly the right size for what happened.
this is for people who are hard on themselves about how much things affect them, and who have a habit of shrinking their own emotional responses.