Why did I ever make any video?
There are videos everywhere on the internet for us to watch whenever we get bored, anxious, nervous, tired or full of energy. How can this be, that the internet draws us in so much?
We browse and we browse and did we ever stop and think or wonder what we did before all the video content was available?
How did we gather so much time into our lives that we now do all that we did before and still have time to watch a whole bunch of memes and 30 second videos? Weird isn’t it
I make videos to reach those who are browsing and searching for some inspirational piece that can help move you past where you are at. I have not ever made a “viral video” probably because I know my niche is quite small. Also because the content is not for the masses at all, people who find my videos do so because they are coming from a place that is much different than scrolling looking for a quick fix of a “whatever” video. The content I post is quite real and delivering a millisecond of clarification to a mixed up person, a mixed up emotional and mentally out of whack person. Resonating with a very small n umber of people who get what it is to hurt and although we know why we hurt we still search for some kind of comfort level with the pain. We want to know that we will be okay and we want to know that it is okay to be out of sync.
I have often referred to my own content as “real” & “raw” life. The REAL of it all is why the masses do not get it because for some unknown reason, well unknown to me at least. The fake content is much more widely consumed. Who knows why this is? Perhaps you can share with me what you know about how it all works. I do not know and will listen closely to your reasoning.
What I do know is that it is not a comfortable place to hurt inside; it is not any person’s go to place to want to be upset and feel emotional pain. It is not any person’s choice to want to feel worse or become too down on any given day. I only know this because of how I feel myself and what I have learned from my own feelings. Though my own emotions and how I wish my life to be is based upon my choices and you may be different, I get that too. The real and the raw of life are not things people wish to or want to know or discuss openly and then it feeds the cycle of all the stigmas that exist. Why so? Perhaps because many people have been telling you “nobody wants to hear it, “don’t bring other people down with you”, “be the life and soul of it all”, “it is nice to be nice” etc. I am also aware that somehow many people wish to escape feelings and be in a different state because there is comfort in not acknowledging what is going on, this is totally fine too once it works for you.
When is it not working for you?
When you change your life habits because of wishing to remain in a comfort zone that keeps you out of your feelings what is happening?
Instead of harping on about how any one individual’s process of how they feel, perhaps we can take a look at what it means to hold on to feelings and not share them. Understanding that whatever you feel or whatever you think is totally fine is a beginning place, they are yours and this is you and this is what makes it all fine. Of course there are “rules” set out that say what it is to be civilized and what may or may not be acceptable behaviour within society. So the boundaries are set out and we operate within these “societal norms”, this is important to understand because when we begin to drift outside of the “guidelines” then it may become NOT FINE at all. So what are reasons to be real and raw about how it hurts, about what you think and how you feel. More importantly what it is you do with those feelings?
This brings us to the piece about can we share how we feel and still remain comfortable about ourselves? Can we tell somebody when we feel nervous? Can we tell somebody when we feel love? Can we tell somebody when we feel like we want the world to end? Can we openly discuss how we feel with somebody and it will not rattle the earth so much that the planet would explode? When we are hurt or wish to hide ourselves away, what is really going on and what can we do about it to release from ourselves the burden of pain and hurt?
How many videos out there will be therapeutic in ways that will make you feel so comfortable that you do not feel okay? You know yourself as best as anybody can and then it is you who gets to set out what is okay and what is not. An important thing to note is that it does not come from comparing anything to anything you see on the internet. Maybe you have been putting yourself under a little bit of pressure to be something else or somebody else and this brings up too much anxiety which in turn has your head spinning in circles. Maybe and just maybe you can begin to see that it is about you and your own head space and your own feelings and nothing about anything that is outside of you. Not the videos online, not the beautiful life people wish to portray and you get to compare to. None of it outside of myself means anything other than nonsense. What matters most is can I place my head on a pillow at night and be at peace? Can I wake up in the morning and feel good with the world around me. It is my head space and they are my feelings. Theses are the things that matter first and foremost and then I can begin to dip my toe in the water of the outside world once my own inside is doing okay. The cycle of how the isolation and hidden secrets of self are held in begins when? Not forgetting that the cycle feeds off itself by keeping quiet about it and not sharing. There lies the comfort zone and the place where nobody “should” rock the boat. Let us all remain calm and silent so that we do not upset any other person.
The happy place I recognise is where I thought I “should” keep silent about all the pain that I felt and nobody really wanted to know and therefore the cycle makes it harder and harder for me to function. The more I stay quiet the more my feelings and thoughts were leading me down a winding path. I just mentioned the word “down”, that has been a place I do not wish to be and you may relate to that. Although in the alternative, I do not wish to be high either. Maybe you relate to this too. So where can be my happy place? Where is my best comfortable feeling in the middle of all that? A place I have began to call content, not happy though, simple contentment, a place that we live in most of the time and then sometimes we fluctuate to down a little and up a little. We visit happy every once in a while and then we visit sad every once in a while too. The points of down where I lived for quite some time were not nice and felt horrible to be honest and while there feeding off myself in my own cycle of things, the feeling of down had me thinking all kinds of mad things and so those feelings began to help keep me down and that happy was a place I thought I would never experience again, EVER!
Is happy all it cracked up to be anyways? I began to become accustomed to feeling down, I began to know it was my “new normal” and so the slightest lift from that place I thought was a happy place. Even though I was then only beginning to know that I was starting off from the minus 1000mtrs starting blocks in a 100mtrs event. The place I thought was becoming happy was merely 10 ft from where I was and that place was, severely down. Down beaten, down trodden, sad, whatever you want to call it. The thing I was not calling it was HURT, the name it deserved. Hurt and full of unexplainable pain. I said unexplainable and to clarify, I know why or the reasons I was hurting and in pain though I could not explain what it felt like. Ya know when people say things like “they are no words…” or “words just cannot describe…” those where the kinds of feelings of hurt and pain. These kinds of feelings became so “normal” for me that I grew anxious and nervous about anything and around anything that might feel a little different. I was nervous of feeling happy as I knew it would end and I would drop like stone right back in to the pit. I grew anxious about anything or any time when there might be the presence of joy and something might trigger a happy feeling. I built up too much to those moments and was terrified that it would never last and so I would be dropped again back into the depth of despair where I was living.
Some people use labels like “depression”, the word depression is something that I am not even sure about. I can honestly say that my own life has definitely had its moments where I asked myself, am I depressed or do I simply carry sadness? I am not sure, even to this day. What I do know is that all of the feelings whether they are up feelings or down feelings, that they all share a common thread. They pass and they go away and they come back another day. Knowing this helped me begin to understand that happy was not a place only reserved for big outlandish events and stages in life. Happy is a moment to be experienced. Just the same way as sad is a moment to be experienced. So then I began to see that if these are simply moments and my life is made up of tons and tons of moments, then it is possible to become okay with how I feel. Sad is okay, depressed is okay, happy is okay and excited is okay and so is anxious. That means depressing feelings are okay too. All of the whole big bag of feelings is okay and they are simply moments that are okay. They are moments that I experience in life and they pass and go away too. I understand that a cycle of depression can be an ever lasting moment that does not seem to want to shift and go away anywhere and it hangs on and lingers for quite some time, just like the sadness I was experiencing, the hanging on and never seeing anything in a true light. Feeling awful and owning it and then going about a day in a world where everybody seemed to be fine. Struggling to keep a grain of sanity while remaining cordial and peaceful all while interacting with others. Who ever wanted to hear the words from me that I am not okay and I find life difficult right now? And so the cycle won out over me, afraid to speak about how I feel and over anxious in tiny situations. And I was ready to bear the darkness of the inside place where I live? The real and the raw element kept me from disturbing anybody else’s peace, why upset another with stuff only I was experiencing and wants to have to explain and make oneself understood?
What I did figure out was that when I work on myself and I venture further in to the area of how all are only feelings. Right there by speaking those words I have already minimized the feelings to use words in understanding, labels like “only Feeling” makes them have their place as being a little less than the b all end all of life. They are just feelings and they will pass, that again says that they are not the big massive piece of life that I must hang every decision upon. I do not need to fear how I feel anymore. I am not changing anything about how I feel, I am only acknowledging that they are simply feelings and they are not the controlling element of my life, I am! We all possess the power to bring about changes in how we view ourselves first.
Things to remember on a daily basis;
- Comparing my life to another is a complete waste of time and energy
- Knowing my feelings are merely simple feelings and they will come and go.
- I & me are all that matters first.
- Whether we worry or are anxious changes nothing of the outcome of events.
- Understanding how I work is more important than anybody else understanding.
- Speaking and sharing about how I feel makes for a content place to live life.
- My thoughts and my feelings are totally okay and sharing with others makes them pass through a little easier.
A.McNallyauthor.com 