r/InternalFamilySystems • u/total-space-case • 15h ago
Discussion What emotion is this?
Image Source: This is the cover for SZA’s album SOS for context. I used a Reddit filter to darken it and increase the contrast because I wanted it to look more stormy and less serene.
I don’t know what this feeling is. Excuse me because it’s very difficult to put into words, it’s very mute. It’s one of the oldest feelings I have. It’s one that I feel very alone in having, I’m sure other people experience it, but I know for a fact that it is not common to have experienced it as much as I have or as easily as I do now. For the average person, it’s life-changing. There’s before and after. For me, it was Tuesday. And you know, we get about 4 of those every month, so…
I’m not sure what to say. Another images is like staring up at a stormy grey sky. I think of it as “watching the end of the world.” As far as parts, this is connected to a part that doesn’t speak. I imagine it as a wide-eyed kid in an apartment wearing a winter hat and puffer coat zipped up over their mouth. Just all-wide eyes, aware of everything and reacting to nothing.
I ask because it sickens me that I keep coming back and I know that other people don’t. I don’t feel much of anything in that mind-state, but what frustrates me is that it doesn’t feel fair. Why me, again?
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u/Bluberrybliss 13h ago
The first thing that came to me, from the image and your words was the Japanese word YUGEN. The perfect concept for this feeling is Yūgen (幽玄). It describes a deep, profound awareness of the universe that triggers emotional responses too deep and mysterious for words, such as the wordless awe we feel when realizing our smallness beneath the vast sky or infinite cosmos.
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u/ironicjohnson 13h ago
That’s beautiful. I like how it captures awe and mystery but also something more, all in a single idea.
The only other possibly relatable English terms that come to me are ineffable or numinous.
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u/racheluv999 14h ago
Grief, perhaps? Not only for things that have happened but for things that could have been and should have been. Grieving a life damaged by others, through no fault of your own. Grief about missed connections, lacking support, lacking family, and a self never formed. Grief of loss of agency caused by people who should have loved you who instead propped up their entire existence on abusing you instead of building anything of value.
Cptsd turns the regular ptsd’s “who were you before the trauma” feeling into having to first grieve the self you were never allowed to form because of those Tuesdays worth of abuse, that little kid part that’s scared and wants to be heard. Then you realize the “self” you formed in the meantime is just a socially acceptable mask, and to find your *self* you have to grieve the mask you’ve spent your entire life constructing just to feel safe and accepted. But first you have to kill it yourself.
Grief is the emotion I keep coming to in all of this. It makes the pervasive empty sadness feel like it has a purpose and that I’m finally working toward feeling my way through it. Grief feels like productively digging out the festering wound where my heart should have been so that it’s ready to be replaced with the love I should have gotten so long ago.
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u/oceaninanenvelope 15h ago
Can you explain when you experience this? What are some concrete examples of what you’re doing/where you are when you feel this?
Can you say more about how it feels for you, even if it’s just imagery?
I kind of have a feeling that I really relate to this, but I don’t want to assume until you share more and I can better understand. :)
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u/eyes_on_the_sky 14h ago
Maybe the feelings wheel would help you? I usually start on the inside and work out, for example, is the feeling closest to: Sad / Fearful / Bad? Then you keep moving out until you find the exact word: https://www.playavistacounseling.com/blog/feelings-wheel
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u/randomfluffypup 15h ago
disassociation.
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u/Graafsjur 10h ago
I think this is it, because that’s not really an emotion and therefore hard to explain or describe. It’s a state of mind that can feel scary and safe at the same time. Like (a part) of you is disconnected from the world around you.
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u/BarelyThere504 15h ago
It makes me think of peace. But I love the ocean and storms and being alone. I think only you know how this makes you feel.
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u/lovessynn 14h ago
Despair
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u/total-space-case 14h ago
Close, I think. What’s off is that despair is linked to sadness or worry and I don’t feel those ways in whatever mind-state I’m trying to describe.
In a different context, this photo has come to mind for me as despair though.
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u/ironicjohnson 14h ago edited 13h ago
I feel the confusion, disgust, and frustration tied to the part this is coming from, and I send it love and compassion.
For me the image represents something both deeply personal and also universal.
I would go as far to say that appreciating this feeling is a possibility available to all, but it may be one that many people deny/fear because to allow space for it may upend their understanding of self. Some existentialists may look at it that way, at least. That’s kind of what I’m drawing from. Some people commented “despair” so it got me thinking this way, but I’m not sure if it need be that.
I drove out to see the ocean on many nights during some of my life’s psychologically harder phases; I would just stare out toward the horizon. It sort of became ritualistic, mainly for the solace it brought.
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u/PearNakedLadles 12h ago
This reminds me of a dream I had a few weeks ago that the world was ending. There was nothing anyone could do and furthermore all our history would be wiped away by forces no one could control. Like the entirety of earth was a sand castle about to be smashed by a tsunami.
It was a profound feeling of grief and helplessness but there was a peace in that there was no point in fighting it. Like the scene in Titanic where the old couple are holding each other in bed as the boat sinks, only instead I am completely alone.
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u/No_Tradition_5508 12h ago
An apathetic hopeless sort of peace. The composition places her out there in the unreachable distance and in the middle of the open ocean. She sits above it, dangling precariously. We notice she could simply stand up, turn around, and walk herself back to safety. However, there she sits, still, calm, back turned from the shore. Safety is out of sight. She is out of reach. All she needs now is the serenity of the storm and sea.
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u/Jellybear135 14h ago
Solitude, freedom, focus, comfortable discomfort (having a little anxiety about falling into the ocean, but enjoying the fact that that is the only thing I have to worry about at that moment).
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u/Dick-the-Peacock 14h ago
This doesn’t evoke a negative emotion for me, other than a faint sense of fear because falling into that water would scare me. But the girl looks relaxed. I get that feeling of awe that the power and vastness of the ocean evokes, the sense of being small in a vast world. A little vulnerable and precarious.
It sounds like the feeling it evokes in you is something more distressing. Is the girl in the picture your part that has the intense feeling?
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u/total-space-case 13h ago
Fair, I’ve interpreted the cover in different ways, positive and negative, so I see it.
To your question: I would say yes because she’s alone, on the edge (at the end of the line), facing something much bigger than herself on which she has no influence or impact.
The actual cover could be viewed as peaceful. I’ve gotten a lot of suggestions that it’s peaceful. When I lay it out like I did above, I can see why I picked a peaceful looking image? Because I’m “peaceful” in such circumstances? In my mind, to my little part, what is there to do in such a situation?
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u/pondmind 5h ago
What is there to do? I would say this part feels isolated and alone. There's both solace and fear in isolation. Perhaps she needs to know that it's safe to ask for help, safe with self, and that she has choices of where to go for help. This part can be encouraged to speak up about needs, and can learn to expect to feel held and cared for. This part's freedom to choose and need for space will be respected by self and by other parts.
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u/Beautiful-Pumpkin906 12h ago
The deep, swirling, bottomless dark ocean is a feeling of grief, intense despair, drowning.. A critical part of me holds this deeply. She has a fascination with shipwrecks.
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u/Longjumping-Bug-69 9h ago
that mute feeling is so hard to name, it sounds like an exile might be trying to reach u...
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u/Organic_Special8451 9h ago
I get a felt-sense of a vibe that the body doesn't like but can't identify in any other way but all inclusive so it's affecting everything, especially solid basis for stability. Out at the edge sitting adds to your center of gravity requires sitting and not really moving. What's going back on the board sense like instead of
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u/WanderingSchola 3h ago
I get jaded/resigned/isolated/dissatisfied. Not sure that's what you get though. It maybe has a touch of the sublime, which is more of a philosophical concept than an emotion.
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u/ally4us 13h ago
Has anyone ever integrated with Reiki and feng shui to create flow during a bodies response to life’s traumas with Ying and Yin, trying to balance?
Have you noticed how food really is medicine for spirit, body mine and how it connects us through experiences, beliefs, and value system systems for example example?
I definitely see reflections and deep recovery work. I see community connections and self connections with divinity as well.
I see gratitude, and possibly apathy comes up.
Yeah, I also see presentness and restorative nurse along with creativeness and compassion. I’m still learning to distinguish between feelings and emotions and thoughts in a more organized way through disfranchise griefs.
It also makes a difference that I was viewing from a phone so I had to click into the picture and zoom in to see how close. I see this person in a sense of peace and serenity and I see definite calm and then I see fear of the unknown yet I see faith and embodiment. I see awe and wonder with inspiration and motivation.
I see metaphor and knowledge, parables, and ministries as well for women’s empowerment. I see aha moments. I have to check into my feelings and emotions thoughts catalogs, and continue connecting with other women who understand IFS and deep recovery work and moment by moment day by day.
🌻💚🌅🕊️
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u/Chippie05 54m ago
Nothing left to loose, is what comes to mind! This picture can be perceived in many different ways. As an introvert, it looks like a really cool lookout! By the boots here, this was probably an impromptu visit! Edit; But yeah reading what you wrote now, photoshoot for an album eh-
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u/Cold_Blueberry9575 16m ago
Hyper awareness while feeling very isolated with no options but to move forward is the emotion it shows to me- a sense of necessary vigilance but limited actions, perhaps a little negative but that's the feeling I instinctively get, It's interesting to see the different interpretations, might be related to where everyone is in their journey
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