So it’s a new year! New classes, new faces, new activities…right? Or maybe you’ve hit the sophomore slump, jun[ior] gloom, or senioritis, and everything just feels kind of the same. You’re in a funk, you snap at your friends, it’s supposed to be syllabus week but for some reason you feel like your assignments are due faster than you can put them in your planner. College is supposed to be fun, supposed to be crazy and wild, but you feel static.
So…what do you do? It’s hard to separate your emotions from facts, and sometimes you just happen to feel like everything is a bit too much. Your friends are all talking about how stressed they are, the transition from summer back to school is hard, you’re finding your footing in your classes and everything just feels a bit off. Sidenote: maybe this isn’t you, and that’s okay! But keep reading, because I think you’ll find this important.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Feelings are not facts.
When I first heard this, I got a little freaked out because our emotions and our feelings are at the core of who we are. It’s your Jiminy Cricket, your consciousness, that little voice in your head, but most importantly, it’s a reaction.
When events happen, we have reactions and we have responses. Reactions are those initial heart flutters when the person you have a crush on walks by, or the tears you get watching that episode of Grey’s Anatomy, or the smile you get when you see your friend. It is our body helping us to attempt to understand what’s going on.
That’s my main point, emotions help us to try to understand something. They may be a reaction to a misunderstanding, something that isn’t real. So you could walk around in a funk for multiple days for no reason other than the fact that you simply are upset about something.
So what do we do about it?
It sounds uncomfy, but try to respond, and not react. It’s a skill that takes a lot of time, but it’s all about training your body to differentiate between feelings and fact. When a friend looks at you funny, your first instinct may be to freak out and worry why they’re angry, but it could be a lot of things.
When you get that flurry of emotion, be it anger or sadness or panic or anxiety, sit in it. No, I’m serious, embrace the fact that you may feel bad. Let it wash over you because the worst thing you can do to your emotions is to deny them. It’s a reaction, and it is valid in the sense that it is your body telling you something. You deserve it to yourself to listen to that reaction, but then let yourself come to your senses. Accept that you may be feeling homesick or stressed or panicked, and it actually helps the situation.
Pro-positivity is great, and I’m all about stopping the glorification of stress, but that doesn’t put a halt to the underlying reality that we are still humans and we feel things. So take your moment, take your time to feel whatever it is you need to feel, because the sooner you accept it the sooner you’ll feel better and the sooner you can change that feeling into a fact.
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