Understanding your own brand of lunatic
Last year when I was going through some things I realized I didn’t know much about how I was feeling at any given time. I struggled with why it was so hard to understand how I felt let alone express it to someone else so that I can ask for what I need. I started doing some research and found an article from a person who came from an extremely violent background, recovered, and now runs a website that has to do with taking care of yourself from all angles. From there I downloaded one of the free resources, a simple feelings chart, which lists an expansive amount of words for feelings. For a while I tracked my day to day feelings so I could attain some clarity around what I was going through. Beyond tracking I kept the feelings sheet on my computer because I thought it was so powerful. I had never seen anything like that before, even though nowadays I see it quite often since beginning to work in the mental health industry.
In the last few weeks I found this blog post which helps you chart your (creative) feelings under the moon and includes a printable moon chart. When it comes to my creativity I have some absolutely out of control days feelings-wise, so I thought this could help. I did the step by step process in the blog post and was able to decode the main (creative) feelings that I deal with on a daily basis. I keep putting creative in parentheses because my creative life coincides greatly with my moods in general since my creative life is so tied to my daily life, so I believe this process can be used to uncover a person’s main moods in general. What’s fascinating about doing this and what I discovered is that we really do only have a handful of predominant feelings that we feel on a daily basis. Decoding what they are can make them easier to manage, help us better prepare as they rise, and inform on how best to take care of ourselves.
Step 3 is where this is figured out - you’re asked to “make a list of words to describe feelings, moods or states you often experience in your creative practice or process,” then select a final 5-10 that are predominant for you, then use that final list to note daily your overall (creative energy) mood in the printable chart. I used the simple feelings list since it’s so extensive and some other words that resonate, as well as an esoteric term that best describes how I get on certain days. Going through this with Hali in her video I noticed her final list was so different from mine. This made me realize how in general all of us go through very different, very varied insane spectrum feelings on a daily basis. We may take it personally when someone else is in one of their predominant moods but this process shows that it’s not personal at all, because we are all so different in what we’ve been through in life. Our experiences have shaped how we feel anxiety, fear, being busy, wanting to relax, chaos, etc.
I figured out my own final list like this:
For a few days I used the simple feelings chart to track all my feelings. Each day at the end of the day I wrote everything I felt that day. Ex. Day 1-anxious/burnt out/discouraged/doubtful/empty/frustrated/impatient/insecure/overwhelmed/pressure/stressed/tired/uncertain/vulnerable.
Then I thought about the day, why had I felt all those ways, what was happening around me? This was helpful because thinking of experiences in tandem with my feelings helped me dig deep to figure out what was happening for me. Ex. That day I had been rushing/forcing myself to create something. This was not okay, and as a result I was not okay.
Next I asked myself if I had this experience (felt this way) before. If so I knew it had to go on my final list of 5-10. Ex. I could recognize that I had felt this way before, so how would I label this feeling, what reigned supreme out of all the feelings I listed above (and it might not be a word you used)? For me it was Suffocation.
While doing all this I was able to identify other frequent experiences I had - for example days where I couldn’t figure out where I wanted to go write and didn’t end up writing at all as a result, and how painful this was for me. I also thought about experiences in relation to other people - for example if I was preoccupied with plans (or things I needed to do that took up my whole day) although a balance in life is necessary I usually felt this aching inside “fuck I don’t have time to write” or “fuck I could be writing instead.” You may have been taught to shame yourself for feeling but even if this happens to you, even if you think of some experiences and say to yourself “I shouldn’t feel this way,” it still should all be written down.
After you get to your final list you can note your daily overall feeling with the printable chart and start to identify clear patterns of moods as they relate to the phases and signs of the moon (if you decide to go through the whole process in the blog post you will see how this works). Doing this has started me down a path of solace and relief in my creative life and life in general. Instead of panicking over all these feelings and criticizing myself for having them, I can name them now because they’re mine, they’re very specific to me. I’m a unique human and have my own brand of lunacy I need to take responsibility for understanding and learning, and I can do that in a different way now having discovered this information.
As a sidenote, the reason why we show children feelings charts is because feelings are highly complex but when they can name and readily communicate what they feel they not only calm down (regulate) but also consciously decide how to respond. They may be children, but most adults are in the same situation because the majority of us grew up being told we are not allowed to feel. Suppressing then means now we’re grown but have no clue how to understand ourselves and start acting out as a result which leads us nowhere. In addition, we have no idea how to communicate our needs in relationships that mean everything to us and sometimes they end as a result. Therefore, there is much significance in understanding our own specific feelings. Read more about the value of naming feelings for children (yourself) here.
Jennifer Diane is a witch scholar, writer and model based out of New Jersey. She’s authored Folk Horror, Rural Horror, Devil’s Manifesto, Emotional Horrorshow, and Salvation (out now). Book a one on one session, shop her books and zines, or find her on Instagram.
Please note, I pen free and paid content for this publication, Darkness Thriving, as well as monthly fictional stories for the Dark Lord Show Me the Way section. You can control what you receive via email by going here.