Reflection: The Carousel of Emotions

We are constantly ebbing into and flowing out of various emotional states. Our emotions may be shapeless entities, but they are powerful. They have the ability to consume us, chew us, and spit us leaving no crumbs behind. What's beautiful and haunting is how we are separated yet so intertwined with our emotions.  You can't touch your feelings, you can't see them (you can imagine them, but you don't really know what they look like), and you sure as hell can't hear them (i.e. what would they sound like if they didn't sound like your voice?). In other words, our existence is at the whim of something that is paradoxically nothing, at least materialistically. 

​As of late, I've been sipping from the gauntlet of melancholic optimism; two emotional states with contrasting tastes. This got me thinking about the fragility of feelings, and how I'm able to effortlessly melt in between emotional states. When you do not have control over your feelings, reality becomes kaleidoscopic, distorted, and fragmented. Living inside of your head is not the same thing as living; you are operating from an insular space, a vacuum chamber made of your own misconceptions and projections. All of us are vacuum chambers looking at each other with distorted lens tinted by our traumas and personal histories. There is no singular, right way of being, rather each and every one of us are expressions of what could be - but that is a discussion for another time.

What inspired me to paint The Carousel of Emotions is this idea that throughout our lives we choose which emotion to ride. Existence is like a carousel, spinning in circles until we hop on. The question expressed in this painting is what will you choose? Feelings are choices. 

​It has taken me a lot of time to separate myself from my emotions, especially as someone who struggles with generalized anxiety. For a very long time, feelings felt like blockages that forbade me from living. They anchored me, and felt very heavy on my shoulders. The greatest lesson I've learned is that I am not my feelings. Tying my sense of self to something that is constantly changing doesn't make sense. Like the carousel, if I hold on forever, I'll just be going in circles but not really going anywhere. What I am is something that can't be expressed through my emotions; I am not my fear, I am not my sadness, I am not my melancholy, I am not my happiness. I am something far greater than I will ever understand. 

This painting is meant to be overwhelming with color. It's meant to make you look in all directions, and feel all sorts of feelings. You can choose to ride the carousel, or you can walk away, but perhaps the most powerful thing you can do is stare at it. Acknowledgment without reactivity, without jumping, without rushing into it. 

Feel your feelings, don't become them.