About ten years ago, I remember wishing I couldn’t feel any emotions.
I wished those hurtful feelings, the ones that made me want to escape my own body, could just disappear.
Usually, most of our senses are designed to detect the outside world: eyes, nose, ear, mouth, touch, etc. They respond instantly to external things.
But emotions? I have no idea where they come from.
Somehow, without me noticing, they’re already inside. And by the time I fully feel them, I’m usually alone, sitting or lying in my room.
Where the hell did they come from?
A few years ago, I met a therapist who told me to try focusing on where I felt the difficult emotions in my body. We even made a “body map” where I could draw their shape, color, and size.
Turns out, emotions show up everywhere. In the head, the chest, the back of the neck, the arms, the skin, the belly, somewhere deep in the digestive system… And they all feel different, too. Sometimes it’s tight muscles. Sometimes a hot flush on my skin. A racing heart. A pounding headache. A terrible indigestion.
Malidoma Somé, a West African shaman, once said that in his culture, the Dagara people see mental illness as “good news from the other world.” They believe that someone going through a crisis is being chosen as a messenger—a bridge between our world and the spirit realm. When Somé visited the U.S. in 1980 and met a patient diagnosed with nervous depression, he was shocked by how that person was treated. He said, “So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture. What a loss. What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted.”
Now, I don’t personally believe in the spiritual world. And I don’t agree with everything he says.But there’s something in what he said that feels deeply true—especially the word he kept using: “loss.”
At some point in my life, I had an “aha(😮)” moment: just because I feel “bad” emotions doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me.
I’m fine the way I am, even when I’m depressed.
I’m fine the way I am, even when I can’t process things that are happening in my life without external help.
I’m fine the way I am, even if people cannot understand me and that makes me feel extremely uncomfortable.
I’m fine the way I am when I make mistakes.
Since then, I made a lot of progress but I still don’t know how to control my emotions. They show up in my body, everywhere, and I have no clue where they come from. But maybe I’ve been thinking about them wrong. Taking from Malidoma Somé’s different view, maybe I need to think about these emotions differently. Let’s go back to the question I started with: “Where the hell did they come from?”
My personal observation is that I find the hardest ones late at night, when I’m by myself. From this observation, maybe I can conclude that they really do come from inside. Maybe the sense that feels emotions is the only sense we have that’s facing inward. A sense that only you can feel. No one else in the same room will feel it the same way. It’s a lonely sense, in that way—but maybe that means it’s the one sense that’s wholly yours. Maybe it’s the only sense that cares just about you.
A couple of years ago, I did a project called “Love Letters”. I made a community mailbox where people could drop off anonymous love letters for strangers, and take one if they needed it. It came from the belief that to give love, someone must have once received it. And I wanted people who didn’t feel loved in their personal lives to still experience it, from a stranger.
Now I think maybe that’s not true.
What if we don’t need to have received love externally to know how to love?
What if that internal sense — the one that keeps poking you with reminders that you’re hurting — is there for you and actually love you? It’s definitely not a great communicator. It doesn’t show up with kind words and gentle hugs. It shows up like a 3am booty call, like it only cares about itself. But still — it shows up. And unlike those calls, it stays. It’s loyal.
And if emotions are something we create inside, then maybe we can also create beautiful ones too. Maybe we can make joy, excitement, love — and feel it right there through the same sense. And I hope you find that this sense can do both! As fast as you can, or slowly I guess if that’s the way it’s got to be. This little sense that has a small crush on you and doesn’t know what to do with itself sometimes (maybe that’s why it hurts?). The sense that’s so biased about you that it will never leave you no matter how terrible you can be sometimes. The sense that wants to protect you and grow you. The sense that could end up making you feel like a beautiful human being, even if no one else gets you, because it will always be there for you, and it loves you the most in its twisted ways.
If what I say all sounds like a corny shit and reminds you of “Inside Out”, I have to tell you that I did not plagurize any ideas but I too, kept thinking about that movie when I was writing ;_;. And I’ll also tell you this. Hey— we live in a capitalist world where supposedly everything can be bought. And honestly, one thing I find fascinating about capitalism is how easy money can make things. (Definitely not endorsing it; I know it can be very terrible.) The lesson is: anything can be easy. And I hope the feelings that come to you (if you also get some burns from time to time, like I do) become easier to deal with. I hope it becomes easier for you to vibe with them. Let them be there for you.
My recommendation song for the vibing with them would be Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of…) by Lou Bega. 🎵 A little bit of sadness in my life, a little bit of happiness by my side, and a little bit of you makes me a whole person. 🎵 (Let these sexy feelings feel you up. Why are these women in his music video all so sexy? lol)
Okay. Until next time. Be well. And when I say 안녕하세요 (the Korean “hello,” which literally means “Be well”), I hope you already are.
휘 HWIY is a interdisciplinary artist who primarily works with moving and still imagery. She is interested in investigating, exposing, and revealing connections between individuals and their environments. She often uses fictional narratives to create new meaning in the world and seeks to expand art as a medium for constructing alternative realities. She’s from S.Korea and currently lives in Richmond, VA, USA. And she wants you to be well! <3