Are You Meta-Feeling?


Let me preface this post with a sad anecdote about me: in which I sit in class feeling brilliant about my sudden inspiration and the term that I had so scientifically and accurately come up with, only to later Google it and realise that it's already a well established psychological term.

Ah well, can we all pretend that my brilliance is completely original?

If you're wondering what meta-emotion is, picture this:

Have you ever felt sad, and then become utterly hopeless at the fact that you're sad? Which undoubtedly makes you sadder, which becomes a vicious circle?

Or:

Have you ever felt guilty, then remembered something terrible like the Syrian Refugee Crisis which drives you into further guilt about the fact that there is so much more in the world than your small issue?

Congratulations, you've experienced meta-emotion.

Meta-emotion doesn't have to be the same emotions driving each other, either. Perhaps you've felt guilty about feeling sad, or sad about feeling guilty?

Either way meta-feeling is incredibly unhelpful. Emotion gives us enough to deal with, especially for those who, like me, are highly sensitive. The thing I'm coming to find out this particular emotion, though, is it's largely driven by me and my thought process. The original emotions usually aren't, and as you'll have read from my previous posts I'm a firm believer in accepting what we feel. But when my brain is stirring up nasty thoughts that just leads me to feel worse, that's when I put my foot down.

Because that's precisely the point of this post: it's okay to feel sad, it's okay to feel guilty, it's okay to feel angry, it's okay to feel any number of emotions. But please don't wind yourself up further. Emotions, like so many things in this world, pass and it is usually best if we take the time to express them healthily. So the next time you start to feel the bubbling of something within you, take a deep breath and say "okay".




3 comments:

  1. This was great! :-) Totally experienced that before too.

    moremindfulyou.blogspot.com

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  2. Never realised how often I meta-feel... now i can work on accepting the emptions not pushing them away with guilt

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