The road to feel

As I slow-ran home from a hard track workout, I could feel the elation of pride swelling in my sternum, the cold brisk air biting against my face. I could observe my brain scanning for ideas in the trees around the Panhandle, my mind building little stories about strangers as I passed them. I could feel my dead legs trudging, bringing me home.

I could feel the grit in my soul willing me to speed back up after I'd slowed down. And at the same time, I could feel my enjoyment of the moment itself. All of the wide-ranging paints and colors and styles that made up this moment's canvas.

I could truly savor it. That tired satisfaction. That whole experience.

Then I thought back to high school cross country.

I did similar workouts back then. Tempo runs. Track sessions. And if you looked at the picture of me running back, it would look similar—same tired legs, same cold air, same satisfaction of a hard workout done.

But there were far fewer details. Far fewer feelings.

The canvas was gray.

This is the direct result of walking the road to feel.

Most men, I've noticed, don't get the satisfaction that comes with living in such a beautiful, complicated, intertwined life. We don't savor the extraordinary detail and beauty available in any given moment. When difficult things come up, we can't understand or express how we truly feel. We become emotionally stunted in relationships - unable to connect at a deeper level. We We can't grieve and process hardships the way we need to. And those things build up. They block us even more.

What a shame!

It comes with the territory: we aren't taught to sit with emotions when they arise. We're taught (formally or not) to suck it up. Push it down. Conveniently change our mind state to something more palatable, more recognizable.

I remember when a friend passed away early in high school. I barely cried about it. Or another time in college when I had a difficult breakup with someone I loved. I literally could not express grief in that moment. That grayness sucked.

And it wasn't because I didn't care, but because I had not built the muscle to feel. In the other smaller moments of my life, when emotions would come up, I'd push them away.

What I didn't realize in that moment was that I was making a sacrifice. I was trading comfort for beauty. For depth. For richness in life.

"If we can't cry with pain, we can't thrill with beauty."

There is no free lunch. Sacrificing the "bad" emotions inhibits your ability to feel and express the good ones.

Your life becomes more gray.

I don't know about you, but f*ck that!

I don't want to look back on my life and see a gray canvas. I want all the colors!! I want the full palette.

At the same time, I want to be a strong man. A man who can feel a burning fire below the surface but still appear cool, calm, and collected above. There's a time to express things fully, and there's a time to hold steady. I want both.

And I think you can have it.

For me, it's very simple: When emotions come up, I do not push them away.

I let them enter and be the truth of the moment. I surrender to them, feel them. Maybe I even think about what's causing them. And then, eventually, they naturally move on.

I don't try to cling to them as if I need to feel more sad or more happy. The point is: when they come up, I feel.

I've started to notice this work.

When I went back home for the holidays this winter, I was on a walk listening to some Ludovico Einaudi when I came across my high school.

It had been three years since I'd seen it, and it looked tangibly different. I started to feel an overwhelm of emotions.

I felt the pride of how much I'd grown during my time there. I felt the grief of some of the hard things that happened. I felt the power of time—how there were new high school students that weren't me. How the school, for them, was different. Physically different.

I felt the nostalgia of memories. The tomfoolery in freshman year algebra and senior year econ. The power of what that place meant to me and how it shaped me.

Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face.

Not tears of grief. But pure expressions of the power of that moment.

The canvas was beautiful. I sat there with it and enjoyed the beauty, the pain, the elation, the growth, the nostalgia. Everything.

That was a filet mignon moment.

But if I weren't on the road to feel, it probably would have just been ground beef.

The same event. The same high school. The same cold walk.

But gray. Muted. Forgettable.

If we can't cry with pain, we can't thrill with beauty. There is no free lunch. But the good news is, the road is open. You just have to choose to walk it.