Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / how to talk about your feelings

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how to talk about your feelings · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

• 0:00
  They ask me how I am and I just say it's hard to explain.
• 0:04
  I don't quite understand myself. Am I angry, sad, alone?
• 0:09
  Perhaps the answer to all of those is too hard to swallow.
• 0:13
  It's like waking up early or breaking an old habit.
• 0:16
  It's something I don't really know how to do.
• 0:19
  How am I? My teeth feel like they're
• 0:23
  rotting and my eyes have sunken in.
• 0:25
  My hair hasn't been washed in two weeks and I don't want to
• 0:28
  exist within my own body. How am I?
• 0:31
  I ask into the mirror. It's hard to explain.
• 0:38
  This is an impossibly difficult feeling, knowing that something
• 0:42
  is wrong, knowing that you are struggling with mental illness
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  but not knowing how to put it into words.
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  Maybe something hasn't happened, maybe there hasn't been an event
• 0:53
  that causes you to give yourself permission to feel these
• 0:58
  complicated feelings. This is a real and difficult to
• 1:02
  deal with feeling, but the truth is you don't have to explain
• 1:06
  your feelings in order for them to be valid.
• 1:10
  My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
• 1:13
  Feelings. Now this is a newer series I'm
• 1:16
  starting where I take a poem out of my book.
• 1:19
  I feel everything all the time and I read it and I talk about
• 1:22
  the feelings involved with it. And this one, this one is
• 1:25
  difficult. It's already hard enough to be
• 1:28
  struggling with mental illness. It's another thing when you
• 1:31
  can't even put it into words. One of the biggest pieces of
• 1:34
  mental health advice that all of us receive is to talk about our
• 1:38
  feelings. But what do you do when you
• 1:41
  don't know how to put what you're feeling into words?
• 1:46
  What do you do when the feeling is simply indescribable?
• 1:50
  How do you explain that to somebody?
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  They can't feel what you're feeling, so how could they
• 1:55
  understand? It feels like an impossible
• 1:58
  situation. You know that you need to get
• 2:00
  that feeling out, but you just don't know how to describe it.
• 2:05
  Trust me, I've I've been there. That's why I wrote this poem in
• 2:09
  the 1st place. It was an attempt to get those
• 2:12
  feelings out. It's hard to explain.
• 2:17
  The truth is, mental illness is complicated.
• 2:21
  Sometimes it's beyond words. Sometimes it is an indescribable
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  feeling. It is a weight in your chest.
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  It's a blurriness behind your eyes.
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  It's a it's a tightness in your throat.
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  It's an uneasiness that trickles down your spine.
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  And what do you do with a feeling like that?
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  How do you talk about it? I remember at the height of my
• 2:45
  depression when I physically felt like I couldn't get out of
• 2:49
  bed, when I felt like I had to isolate myself from other people
• 2:53
  because this feeling was just so heavy.
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  I would have people come to me and they would ask what's wrong
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  and I would just say, I don't know, I just feel awful.
• 3:05
  So what do we do? What do we do with this feeling?
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  How do we move forward with it? I want to remind you that I'm
• 3:12
  not a doctor, I'm not a psychiatrist and I'm not a
• 3:15
  professional in the mental health industry whatsoever.
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  I'm a normal guy who, just like you, has felt some big feelings
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  and I'm incredibly passionate about mental health and I know
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  what it's like to feel alone in these feelings.
• 3:25
  So I want to start the conversation and I will speak to
• 3:28
  you from my own personal experience.
• 3:30
  So what do we do? I don't want to say it's simple,
• 3:35
  but it is more straightforward than it seems.
• 3:37
  When the feeling that you're feeling is indescribable, when
• 3:40
  you don't know how to put your mental health struggles into
• 3:42
  words, all you can do is try. You have to describe what you're
• 3:47
  feeling imperfectly. You have to not get it right.
• 3:50
  You have to stumble a little bit.
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  You have to say, hey, I'm, I'm sorry, I know this doesn't make
• 3:54
  sense, but you have to try. When people say you need to talk
• 3:58
  about your mental health issues, they aren't just saying that for
• 4:01
  the sake of saying it. That is a very real piece of
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  advice and it is something that helped me immensely.
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  I mean, this podcast, the music that I make, it is all a form of
• 4:12
  release from the feelings that I struggle with.
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  So you have to find some sort of release and it's not going to be
• 4:19
  perfect. It's going to be messy.
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  It's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be fun.
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  That's the problem is when we try to glorify talking about it,
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  when we try to make it seem like it's going to be easy, like the
• 4:32
  words are going to flow, like the art that you make about your
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  feelings is going to be perfect. It never will be.
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  But you have to try. These feelings, when they're all
• 4:42
  cooped up inside of you, they don't know where to go.
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  So they sit there and they fester and they build up and
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  they get worse and worse and worse.
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  You have to try to get them out. So just like anything with
• 4:54
  mental health, you start small. Maybe you talk to somebody about
• 4:57
  how you're feeling today. Maybe you talk about a specific
• 5:00
  feeling that keeps coming back. You don't have to describe
• 5:03
  everything you're feeling for the last month in one moment.
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  You don't have to do that. You just have to start the
• 5:08
  conversation both with other people and with yourself.
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  You have to stop being afraid of attempting to describe what
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  you're feeling because it is scary and it is difficult and
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  sometimes you're going to say things that don't quite make
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  sense. Sometimes you're going to try
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  your best and you're just not going to be able to get the
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  words out, and that's OK. What matters is that you try and
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  talking about feelings will never be perfect and it will
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  never be pretty, but what matters is you attempt to get
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  those feelings out. When they sit and they fester
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  and they become stronger and they begin to define you and
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  they silence you, that is where one of the true harms of mental
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  illness arrives. So I ask you to please just try
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  reach out to somebody. The next time somebody asks you
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  how you are, be honest with them.
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  Ask them if they're in the headspace for you to be able to
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  vent and talk about how you're truly feeling and get it off
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  your chest. Start small, maybe slowly move
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  to speaking to a professional, speaking to a loved one,
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  speaking to someone who's close to you.
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  What matters is you try. When I was struggling the most
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  with my mental health, I would silence myself because I thought
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  my feelings were too complicated and too heavy for anyone else
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  but me to carry. I thought that I was the only
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  one who knew how to deal with this.
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  I thought that I had to take care of myself.
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  But you're never alone. Somebody will listen, even if
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  the words you say are imperfect. Even if your attempts to
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  describe your feelings come out muddled and they don't make
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  sense, what matters is you try. So do your best.
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  Try talking to somebody, try journaling, try writing lyrics,
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  try writing poetry. Do anything you can to get those
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  feelings out because you are more than those feelings.
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  Although they feel overpowering and you don't know how to
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  describe them, they do not define you.
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  You matter, and you are absolutely capable of getting
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  those feelings out. So from now on out, whenever a
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  complicated feeling comes up, try to do something about it.
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  If you feel the energy too, try to write out what you're feeling
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  or talk to somebody. Any form of release is good.
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  The most important thing that you can do is feel those
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  feelings. That's going to wrap it up for
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  today's episode. Thanks for joining me for
• 7:42
  another poetry reading where I read a poem and talk about the
• 7:45
  feeling. I got to think of a clever name
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  for these Poetry Tuesdays doesn't quite have the same ring
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  to it that Feel Your Feelings Friday does, so I'll have to
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  work on that. If you want to get a copy of
• 7:56
  this book yourself or any merch, head to my website,
• 7:59
  ethanjewel.com. There will be tabs for both.
• 8:02
  If you need help feeling your feelings, you should check out
• 8:04
  my music on all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewel.
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  I almost guarantee it'll make we cry.
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  So thank you so much for being here.
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  Thank you for understanding the importance of at least trying to
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  get those feelings out. And as always, thank you for
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  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.