I’m trying to pay attention to my feelings.  Not in the normal happy/sad sense, but more in the bodily sensations, the feelings that saturate my body throughout the day and prompt me towards certain dispositions, reactions, and judgments.

I’ve come up with three primary kinds of feelings.  The sinking feeling, the bounding feeling, and the balancing feeling.  

Sinking is that feeling in your chest of descending.  As if something were pulling you down.  As if there was a black hole in your gut and everything was being sucked into it.  Sometimes I think of it alternately as crushing.  I think crushing is a more intense form of sinking.  It can take the form of appreciation… seeing the beautiful in the ordinary, loving something you can’t have, dreaming of something better, running away from what actually is.

Bounding is that feeling of expansion, of wanting everything, of feeling strong, confident, and as if you could take on more than you currently have.  It is a desire for experience.  It’s passion, excitement, consumption.  It is the state of forward progress and creativity.

Balancing is the feeling of stillness.  It’s an active emotion and sensation, one that has to be maintained, like balancing on a ball.  Eating right, being healthy, being well rested, not wanting to disturb the status quo.  It is the state of responsibility, ration, and common sense.