You're Allowed to Feel Excited

Hi!

The other night during my hypnosis session my whole body felt like it was lighting up. Excitement. A ping pong of energy bouncing through me.

I spent years shrinking this feeling. I learned how to mute it so I wouldn't disappoint myself or draw attention or risk wanting too much.

Following excitement is a skill I had to relearn.

I went to a Tony Robbins event once and every time he tried to make us jump up and down, I stood still. Arms crossed. Watching thousands of people lose themselves in the moment while I stayed separate.

I told myself I was above all that jumping around.

The truth was I had lost access to the feeling itself.

When you can't feel your own excitement, watching someone else express theirs feels threatening. Like they know something you've forgotten.

Last weekend at my Friendsgiving, I watched my nephew's final high school football game via livestream. He ran across the field and made one of the biggest plays of his high school career. The crowd went wild. My eyes welled up.

From excitement. His excitement. 

I wish I could link to that play so you could all feel everyone's excitement for the moments it lasted.

Who cares if excitement comes in waves? 

Isn't that the entire human experience?

Expecting excitement to last forever is like expecting the ocean to hold still.

The Buddha taught that everything arises and everything passes. This isn't a flaw in the design. This is the design.

Your job is not to build a dam. Your job is to get in the water while the wave is there.

The wave of excitement I felt watching my nephew lasted thirty seconds. Then it passed. Later that night I felt it again talking to my friend about a book. Then it passed again. Then in my session it was back.

This is the human experience. Things arise. Things pass. You feel something fully and then you let it go and then you feel it again when life calls for it.

The body doesn't know the difference between excitement and anxiety.

The heart rate increases for both. The breath changes for both. The stomach flips for both. Same cascade of sensations.

The only difference is the story your brain attaches to the feeling.

If you tell yourself you're in danger, the feeling becomes anxiety.
If you tell yourself you're opening to possibility, the feeling becomes excitement.

The Stoics understood this two thousand years ago. 

Epictetus said we're not disturbed by events, but by our view of events. Buddhist psychology teaches the same thing. Emotions are visitors. What changes us is how we meet them.

So when I feel that ping pong of energy in my chest, I have a choice. I can let my brain rename it anxiety and shut it down. Or I can recognize it as excitement and let it show me what wants to grow.

Stephen Pressfield writes about Resistance. The force that shows up every time we move toward something that matters.

Excitement is one of the first casualties because excitement reveals what you actually want. And once you know what you want, you can be disappointed. You can fail. You can hope for something and not get it.

So Resistance convinces you that the sophisticated move is not to want anything too much. To stay cool. To maintain plausible deniability about your own life.

Permission Is the Practice

Here's what I do now: I say "Tamara, you're allowed to feel excited."

Out loud if I'm alone. Silently if I'm not. Sometimes I put a hand over my heart.

After a lifetime of calming myself down, of talking myself out of enthusiasm, of reminding myself not to be too much—giving myself permission to feel excitement is a radical act.

How to Actually Do This

Stop moving. Pause long enough to feel the signal before your brain renames it.

Name it without judgment. Just say "This is excitement." 

Give yourself permission. Put a hand over your heart. Say "I'm allowed to feel this." 

Let it expand for one breath longer than you normally would. Stay with it. You're building capacity. You're showing your nervous system that excitement won't destroy you.

Ask what it's trying to tell you. Excitement points to alignment. Don't ask "Is this reasonable?" Ask "What is this pointing toward?"

Take one action. One move toward the thing that made you feel alive. 

Resistance will show up the moment you start moving. That's how you know it matters.

Follow It

To feel excited about your own life is a sign that you're no longer betraying yourself.

Follow what excites you. Not because it will stay. Not because it's always going to make sense.

Follow it because in the moments it shows up, it's telling you the truth about what matters.

Even if it only lasts as long as a play on a field.

Even if it comes and goes like waves.

Especially then.