Feeling all the Feels — Nurul Shamsul

Hello again. My last post was at the start of Spring and now we are nearing to the end of this Summer. New Zealand (well Auckland) had another lockdown for most of Spring and to be honest, I have no idea where all that time had gone. But I do know that throughout this whole time I have been feeling all the feels.

It’s not a bad thing- having emotions and feelings is part of the human experience. We aren’t hollow shells, robots or zombies. We think, we make choices, we take action and we feel. We feel a lot of things: happiness, sadness, hate, jealousy, joy, courage, doubt, fear, contentment, loneliness, anger, disappointment, excitement, love and everything in between. These are all normal but these feelings, they never define you and they should never completely control you. It’s only what you feel in that particular moment and that’s it.

Sometimes I forget that this life is ever so fleeting and anything and everything has the ability to disappoint you. But Allah is the One who will never disappoint and He is the One who knows what you truly need. When life gets too hard or you feel hopeless, I hope you get reminded that you can always turn to Allah and seek His help and guidance.

I was reminded of this dua that I was taught:

“Ya Allah, you are the One who makes the difficult easy and it is easy for you for you to make it easy. So please make it easy for me.”

These couple of days I’ve been reminded of how I felt at a particular time either from letters or reading my journal. Years or even months later I realised that I no longer felt the way I did. Sometimes I wanted something so badly that I genuinely believed that that was what I thought was the best for me and nothing could make me happier or my life wouldn’t be complete without it. It made me giggle as I realised that I wouldn’t want the same thing as I did today. So when I do feel a certain way again, I will remind myself that I had felt what I felt or experienced what I went through before and it will pass by. Because time really does heal.

As human we also grow and we evolve. Our perspectives or wants can change and sometimes our values do too. All these changes comes from what we have experienced in life and what we have felt. And it’s all a learning process where we may make mistakes along the way. In a time where there is so much uncertainty we should learn to forgive ourselves of what we might have done in the past and to also be gentle towards ourselves with what we are doing in the present. Feel all the feels in its glory because you were meant to feel what you are feeling at this very moment. Because this moment will pass and this feeling wont last forever.