On Feeling Down - Duncan Trussell

Taken from his Nightstream 13 these are some of the best descriptions I've heard or seen of emotions and feelings.

Knowing you're feeling it

The first step is simply knowing you're feeling down. When you try to "power through feeling down by pretending I'm not down" - that's when things get "real weird." Just being able to say "I guess I'm having some kind of thing right now" is where it starts.

There's something missing in most people: the basic trust that the way you feel is okay. We've been wired to think that anything short of "frenzied gleeful" is a failure.

Sinking into it

Rather than running from a feeling, the move is to "really just fully sink into the feeling completely" - to trust it. Trying to rush through it is like being in a hurry while your body won't cooperate: the urgency itself prolongs it.

Feelings are transient

Feelings don't last. The discomfort of a feeling gets amplified by the fantasy of how you should be feeling - and those two things together, the fantasy and the reality, create "a perfect crucifix that you can crucify yourself on" instead of simply: yeah, this is how I'm feeling today.

Feeling bad about feeling bad

The feedback loop: you feel bad, then you feel bad about feeling bad. A loop that goes nowhere - "which is really fucked up because you already feel bad."

Feelings aren't you

Feelings are not the sum total of what you are. They're "just one aspect - a readout." In one language (possibly Japanese), people don't say I am sad - they say "there is sadness."

Buddhism's first noble truth isn't life is suffering - it's "there is suffering."

When it's raining, you're not raining. There is rain. Your emotional states are something you're within, not something you are - "weather systems you're encountering."

The tidal flow

Humans are not capable of dialling in emotional states. We are subject to "a sort of tidal, cyclical tidal emotional flow" - influenced by controllable things, uncontrollable things, and maybe things nobody can quantify: "bizarre metaphysical unquantified energy that runs through the circuitry of humanity."

Everyone is hiding it. "We're all such liars, so eager to not seem out of our goddamn minds." There are secret weather systems flowing through neighbourhoods that you'll never see.

The annoyingly simple fix

The other side: exercise, water, vitamin D. The irritating reality that after going for a run "this is all I had to do." Like walking a dog - "I'm just a dog. I need to walk the physical part of my identity more than I do."