How Are Your Feeling?

How Are You Feeling? by Joyce Kyles

We are all busy with something-work, school, home, business...LIFE.

And if we’re honest, it can get overwhelming. We find ourselves running on fumes. We’re so busy we forgot to eat. We didn’t make time to hydrate. We unintentionally put ourselves in a position to feel faint and famished.

As we go about our day, someone is almost sure to ask us, ‘how are you doing?’, and our standard answer is usually, ‘I’m fine.’ Lies, lies, lies, I say! That is the usual canned response many of us give because, well, it’s what makes sense to say. I also think it’s a bit of a conditioned response.

Let me ask you a different question. How are you feeling?

The typical canned response of fine usually doesn’t usually come up immediately unless of course, you are indeed feeling fine. Asking how one is feeling will often cause a slight pause in the response because it evokes a different type of emotion. It encourages thought and more often than not, a more genuine answer. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve asked these two questions in workshops, coaching sessions, and in everyday conversation. Almost always, I will have someone pause or flat out tell me that no one’s not asked me that before (or not in a way that caused me to think about it).

Keep showing up for team meetings, pep rallies, and soccer games.

Keep buying the groceries, washing the clothes, cleaning the house, and babysitting the grandkids.

Keep attending sorority meetings, baking cakes, and volunteering at the local community center.

Keep doing those things without a system and a schedule that intentionally and unapologetically includes rest and recentering, and your true feelings will surface.

And they will do so at THE most inconvenient, inappropriate time.

Brothers and sisters, we should not be in the business of showing up for everything and everyone but ourselves.

Busy is overrated and outdated.

Now, I’m not advocating for you to bear your soul the next time someone asks you how you’re doing. However, I am suggesting that you think about your answer. You may not want or need to give a full on explanation about how you’re doing. Many times, people are asking how you’re doing to be polite. Depending on the person, they may even genuinely want to know how you’re feeling and use the word doing instead. Gauge the person and the situation.

But the self-check is still the same. If your I’m fine feels more like a protective answer than what you’re actually feeling, take a step back and talk to someone.

Take a breath.

Respectfully decline the invitation.

If we ever meet and I ask you how you’re feeling, I genuinely want to know.

Whether frustrated or fabulous, stay tuned in and tapped in to how you're feeling and be intentional about showing up as your best you-today and everyday!

Take a moment today to pause, check in, and ask yourself: How are you feeling?

Interested in exploring this topic further? Connect with Joyce at jkyles@toorelinstitute.org.