It's no secret that I have big feelings. I'm generally a bit sad, very single, and a hopeless romantic. I've experienced personal, professional, and romantic traumas, made terrible decisions, and cried and healed through it all.
But this is not new, not news, or even unique to me. This is life itself.
Some people run from their emotions; others run toward them and I'm the latter. And the very purpose of this writing is to give anyone currently bottling it up a push to let it out, to be brave, to embrace your feelings. And, I feel it’s important to share a little about what has inspired me to embrace my emotions, even when doing so can run you dry. (Take it from someone who has possibly always been a little too brave when it comes to expressing her feelings—nothing has gone wrong thus far. It will be okay, you will live to tell the tale, and you might just be a little bit lighter after it all.)
As a deep feeler, I have a keen eye for media that is similarly deep. My refined palette for pain and obsession with existential feelings started very early. As a child, my favorite movies were Hope Floats, A Little Princess, The Truman Show, and The Fox and the Hound—a rather uplifting bunch, nothing to see here…
Then, around age 10, I began reading Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul every night before bed and sobbing into my pillow. Even then, I seemed to understand that empathy and catharsis were signs of being alive.
In high school, I was obsessed with quotes like "scars are proof you survived,” and one time in college my mom sent me the most iconic hand-written card ever that I have buried in a keepsake bin. The front: An elephant holding a balloon that read “hugs”... The inside: “You should really go for a walk or see a therapist. Love, Mom”
As a young adult, I studied abroad in the African nation of Gabon. While there, I had several profound “conversations” with the people living in an extremely rural community that took 36 hours and three different modes of transit to visit. Despite the language barrier, I found that a simple hug went a long way. That the sound of a crying child has no language. That a mother’s look of approval doesn’t require words. These moments of connection inspired an art series reflecting on the temporary loyalty of international engagement and the complex and traumatic effects of the savior complex and satellite relationships on such communities. Simultaneously, I reflected on the very real relationships that occur when vulnerability is expressed and shared with others. I spiraled a bit, but I made a lot of art and learned a lot about myself and the world in the process.
This exploration evolved into understanding how emotion manifests culturally and how shared trauma relates to individual trauma. There is power within shared trauma just as there is exponential joy within community. I learned that physical and emotional comfort manifests differently alone and with others and that not everyone experiences the same beneficial healing that is physical touch.
My college thesis evolved and eventually manifested as a 20-square-foot “room that feels like a hug” which I designed and built by hand. It featured a heated concrete hand bath that glowed and was scented with sandalwood—a scent that people associate with hugs. One visitor wrote in the guest book that the room helped them avoid a panic attack.
In short, embodying raw feelings collectively is central to who I am. I've grown fonder of art, movies, and literature that express these deep, shared feelings and work through life's inevitable traumas. While we can't control what happens to us, we can control our reactions.
I love collaborating with artists because they understand me, even through dark times. This passion is reflected in my work for Bond & Grace, curating an Art Collective full of deep thinkers and feelers who create vulnerable art. Yes, I’m looking at you, Julia Hacker and also Deni Rayneau, Theresa Bear, Shachi Kale, Benedict Scheuer, Holly Lowen, and Mekia Machine.
As artists, we often put our whole body and always put some of our soul into our art. My personal paintings manifest as joyful flowers, yet they are created in great solitude after hours of reflection and sometimes while crying. When I process sadness and confusion through paint, I let myself feel wholeheartedly and it feels like freedom to let it go and turn pain into beauty. Julia and I talked about this a bit on an emotional episode of Art Talk.
But perhaps the most therapeutic thing I do is run a secret poetry Instagram account where I write personal monologues and weep into the void. I love that it is both private (no personal identifiers) and yet public enough that anyone could find it. The poems are some of my most prized possessions and honest accounts of the things I’ve experienced, from painful situationships to physical traumas to recovering from narcissistic abuse. And no, you can’t read them.
I believe our feelings are an extension of ourselves, not always needing to be diluted or hidden, and I make space to express different versions of my emotions for different audiences.
Editing yourself makes sense at work, but when you’re alone, it's essential to engage in therapeutic cleansing—to have a good, honest wallow and move through feelings in a way that honors the pain. When we hold onto feelings for too long, it takes a toll. If we hold on long enough, we lose the capacity to experience them fully and the freedom to let them go.
We all have a limited capacity for emotions, and while grief never truly ends, there's power in actively seeking out joy. I believe that all grief begins like thick, black ink, and the more awe, contentment, and light you add, the closer it becomes to water.
So, run that bath, turn on your sunset lamp, let yourself cry, and drink a cold glass of water. Read something sad to get the tears flowing, then shift to what's really going on inside. Write about it, unedited. Feel it all without judgment. And then, tell a stranger you like their outfit. Compliment someone’s smile. Give a loved one a long hug. And go for a long walk in the cold outside. If you go, I’ll go…
If these ramblings aren’t enough to justify indulging in your heaviest feelings, here’s my Tumblr-era/sad girl/dramatic child/emotional enthusiast list of recommendations for the most beautiful of wrecks. You can bawl to them, feel existential amidst them, and catalyze them to be able to process your feelings. In my humble opinion, it’s not masochistic to feel sad if we use those big feelings to process that which we would otherwise bottle up.
Using art to connect with your feelings reminds us that we’re never the first or only person to experience them, and we certainly won't be the last. Your radical expression awaits.
***And of course, major trigger warnings on pretty much every front:
MOVIES
MOVIES BASED ON BOOKS OR ABOUT BOOKS
BOOKS
TV SHOWS
FINE ART
MUSIC
And lastly, here are some tips for battling grief, depression, and existential feelings:
Maggie Lemak is the Creative Director and Curator at Bond & Grace. See more @magslemak.
