I don't speak the language

101 Feelin' & Dealin' with Mae

Hi I'm Mae

And I'm here to remind you that:

We're all dancing on this weird former floating fireball (that somehow grew grass), called earth, together, so why not make the best of it👯⭐

101 Feelin'  & Dealin' with Mae - This is #3 of a series with random hopefully relevant topics, I didn't know I was so passionate about until I wrote them down. 

I don't Speak the Language

I used to be a kid that didn't speak a lot. Not because I was scared of talking, but because I didn't feel heard. It always seemed obvious to me that everyone was too busy dealing with their own inner worlds to really notice me. I didn't know how to get heard. Especially when it came to emotions, I felt like an alien. Like I was somehow the only person in the world who couldn't put what I felt into words. At home talking about emotions definitely wasn't a priority. And looking back these experiences shaped the way i learned to understand and express my feelings... in a very valuable way. 

What a lot of people don't realize is that feeling emotions and putting them into words aren't the same thing. Sounds pretty logical, right? Yet, when we teach kids about emotions, the focus is often on talking about how they feel and telling others when something upsets them.

And of course, this is important! Being able to communicate our feelings and needs helps us connect with others and understand each other.🤝👥 Words are one of the most direct ways to let someone into our inner world, but they aren't the only way we learn to express what's going on inside us. We learn how to express our emotions by observing the people around us. So, if you grow up in a family where feelings aren't openly discussed, putting them into words might not come naturally to you. You might develop other ways of expressing yourself, some healthier than others. Because these emotions don't just disappear when we don't have the words for them. And don't even get me started on what happens when we try to bury these feelings and pretend they don't exist. Guilty as charged🏛️📜🔨

🙋‍♀️ Spoiler alert: they don't just magically disappear...✨✨

But why do we so often treat talking about emotions as the ultimate sign of emotional awareness? What if instead of assuming that everyone knows this language, we help them discover different ways to understand and express what they're feeling too?

It took me a long time to figure this out. I've often felt misunderstood because people mistook my inability to communicate my feelings in words for not wanting help, or for not having problems serious enough to deserve care.

But the thing is, even as a kid, I had learned plenty of ways to express my emotions.✨ I just didn’t express them through words.

I still remember how my dad would say, “Every day is a party, so you better dance!”🕺✨🕺We’d swing💫 and spin 🌀around the room together, and for a while, it felt like we were in our own little world of happiness. On sad days, we’d change the music💿, grab our little instruments🎶, and he’d hold me close as we slowly swayed around the room.

Back then, I didn’t think much of it. I was just a kid dancing with my dad. But looking back, I realize that long before I knew how to put my feelings into words, I learned that my emotions had rhythm and sound, of their own.

I spent a lot of time drawing, too. At first, my dad forced me too, so I hated it. But eventually, my mom and I would make little drawings for each other and hide them around the house for the other to find. 🎨🖌️ No words, just little scribbles of our love, frustration, or regret. Now my emotions not only felt like rhythm and sound, they looked like color and shapes too.

And this is my native language when it comes to emotions.

The tricky part is translating this language into words. Because sometimes, an emotion isn't just something that resonates with some symbols. It's something that you experience with all your senses; it's the tightness in your chest, the urge to move, a palette of colors, the song that suddenly makes you cry. And how do you translate that experience into words when you've never learned to use them? 

I know how lonely it can feel when everyone else seems to know how to make themselves heard, while you're struggling to find the words. And somewhere along the way, you might even start blaming yourself for not being able to explain how you feel. 

Maybe we could all make a little more room for expressing our feelings without words. Imagine asking someone how they're doing, and instead of saying "I'm furious", they suddenly bust out an angry dance routine 🕺🕺right there on the street. Or someone so overwhelmed by life that they pull out the karaoke machine🎤🎶and start singing 'Sign of the Times' in the middle of a café. A little unconventional? Sure. But maybe we'd all feel a little less pressure to pretend we're fine when we're not.

Just remember, some of us already have a native language when it comes to emotions. We just need to recognize it, embrace it, and perhaps find the words to help others understand it, too.