...But Is That How You Really Feel?

There’s a quote that goes, “The eyes don’t see what the mind doesn’t know”, and that essentially means what you can perceive is limited to what you know, or what you understand. You’ve heard versions of this when someone describes something they went through when they were younger and didn’t know what it was or how to explain it until much later in life, they’ll usually say something along the lines of “I didn’t have the language for _______ back then.”

Last year Tik Tokker (Tik Tocker?) CHAYD made a video telling a story about her therapist challenging her to “stop saying emotions that you don’t feel. Stop saying you’re sad and angry when, 9 times out of 10, you’re not sad or angry.” In 4 minutes she explains how this turned out the first time she tried it with her best friend. I’m putting the video here because you absolutely need to watch it, but it ends with her and her friend working backwards from a big generic emotion like being sad, down to the more specific emotion that was exactly what she actually felt.

@realslimchayd

My therapist name is Kesha if yall are looking 😂. Please do this you won’t regret it! #tiktoktherapist #therapytok #emotions #mindsetshif... See more

Two of the most important things in this video are 1.) she had a therapist and a best friend she trusted, who was invested enough in her wellbeing to work through this with her. And 2.) arriving at the more specific feeling she was experiencing shifted her entire perspective on not only her relationship to her feelings, but also how she engaged with them. In terms of my place in, and contributions to community, the mental and emotional wellbeing of queer people of color, Black gay men specifically, has become the most important thing to me. It informs everything from how I make friends and show up in social settings, to how I date and communicate, and how I treat/think about/interact with strangers.

SURF was created with that in mind - resources to encourage you (US) toward taking your (our) mental health as seriously as you (we) take your (our) physical health, and connecting you (us) with people learning and growing through the same things. A quick note, SURF will be undergoing a name change and becoming RELAY, but will largely still be the same newsletter you signed up for. More on that in the next issue!

Also in the next issue, I’ll be starting a new series interviewing Black therapists about our community and approaching the conversations we seem to recycle about love/sex/dating, family, work, grief, spirituality and politics from a more informed place than a bunch of butch queens sending tweets. (I am a butch queen that tweets). I’m really excited to jump back into things and the first interview I’m sharing is with my personal therapist so, I mean, really airing my shit out for likes so please don’t let my shit flop 🙃 

For future interviews though, I also want to hear from y’all and ask questions related to specific things you want to know about, so please send them to [email protected]. Please note if you’d like to be anonymous, and I can’t wait to work them into upcoming conversations.

Thanks for joining me in this, it means a lot to me and not letting my niggas down is very important, so please don’t hesitate to reach out with kind words and constructive criticism in equal measure where necessary.

But watch those B-words. Luh y’all.

P.S. Dropping this now so you can have your very own emotion wheel too. Instructions on how to use it are here, but it’s pretty intuitive - start inside with the emotion that’s most readily available to you, then work outside towards more specific feelings, looking up definitions if you need to!