Naming the feeling is the first step to coming to grips with it

WHAT IS AN EMOTION YOU ALLOW YOURSELF PERMISSION TO EXPERIENCE?

- Sonali Gupta

When I was around eight years old, my father had his first hospitalization due to his diabetes and what followed were many hospitalizations until I was 32 years old which is when he passed away. He had unmanaged diabetes, and it came with complications as the years progressed. Ever since I could remember, my anxiety was like a constant low-grade fever—so much a part of me and yet not too obvious to others. In 2013, when my dad passed away and in the years that followed, I recognized that I had never ever given myself permission to feel the grief or even articulated the anticipatory grief that I had felt. The child in me had feared that acknowledging the grief would mean bringing a bad omen or wishing that he were dead. After he passed away, I realized that none of this was true. I, however, also recognized that I had, in an inchoate way, given myself permission to feel anxiety and fear instead. This insight about separating my feelings and naming them saved me, and even in his death