Thoughts on the Tube

I'm writing this blog on the way home from leaving drinks for a colleague at my not-so-new resting job. There's were loads of people there from the different offices and it was lovely to meet people I hadn't had the chance to meet before and catch up with others that I don't see as often.

I was chatting to one of the zero-hour employees that I've worked with a few times about the imminent reshuffle; all but two of the part time staff, including me, are switching to new offices starting Monday. I shared my frustrations that I was moving after less than a year, how where people where being shifted to didn't seem to align with the stated goals of the reshuffle, and how we didn't get a lot of time to come to terms with the moves. And in that conversation, I realised something.

I was annoyed.

Even though I don't really care in the grand scheme of this, I was annoyed at how abitrary it all felt. I was annoyed that I won't be there when my old supervisor comes back from paternity leave. I'm sad that I won't be able to say goodbye to him in person.

And I'd told myself the story that I wasn't allowed to feel these feelings. Because, it doesn't matter right? This isn't my forever job, why should I care?

In my experience, it's easy to talk ourselves out of our feelings. We brush them aside or push them away because we don't want them to get in the way. We don't want them to upset the apple cart.

But I'm learning that, maybe, we do ourselves a disservice when we do that.

Every time we say, "I shouldn't care about that," we teach ourselves that our feelings don't matter, they are not as important as the status quo, or our logical reasoning of the situation.

Whereas, if we give ourselves permission to say, "even though I don't care, I still feel fear/anger/regret," we do two things.

Firstly, we validate our feelings. We acknowledge and accept how we feel. And when we acknowledge our feelings, we allow ourselves to move through them.

Secondly, we learn to name our feelings. I'm terrible at this. I believe that's because I neglect my emotions in favour of other people's needs and comfort. Expressing our emotions in situations where we don't care allows us to practice without as much risk.

These are just my musings on the way home, so don't take this as psychological advice by any means. But what I know is that finally talking about how I actually feel instead of trying to give the answer I should give felt so freeing. I felt like I was coming back to myself.

So, I invite you to think about where you might be using apathy or indifference as an excuse to ignore or dismiss you emotions. And maybe try saying to a friend or writing in your journal how you actually feel. You might be surprised.