Not Everything You Feel Is About Them
- Francheska Travieso
- Mar 27
- 3 min read
There is a moment that happens so quickly, we almost miss it. It is the space between feeling something and deciding what it means. Most of us do not stay there. We feel something, and almost immediately, we reach for an explanation. We look for a person, a situation, something outside of us that helps us make sense of what we are experiencing. Not because we are doing anything wrong, but because the mind is designed to create meaning. It wants clarity. It wants direction. It wants something to hold onto, so it builds a story.
In this week’s podcast episode, I talked about how easy it is to feel something strong and immediately believe it is about something outside of us. And how, when I paused, I realized it was not. It was something within me that had not been given space. That moment of pause changed everything, because it shifted the focus from what I thought it meant to what was actually being activated.
The story we create often feels true. It feels logical, justified, like the next obvious step. But what we rarely stop to ask is this: what if the feeling is real, but the meaning I gave it is not?
When something feels strong, it is easy to assume it is about what is in front of you. But often, what is happening is internal. Something in you was touched. A part of you that has not had space, has not been expressed, or has not been acknowledged in a while. And instead of staying with that, we reach outward and try to connect it to something or someone.
We do this because it feels easier. It feels more concrete to say, “This is about them,” or “This means something is happening,” than it is to sit with, “What is this showing me about myself?” Awareness asks us to slow down, and slowing down is not always comfortable.
Not every feeling is direction. Some feelings are information. Some are invitations. Some are simply reflections of something within you that is asking to be seen again. If we do not pause long enough to notice the difference, we start moving based on something that was never meant to lead us.
The work is not to stop feeling. The work is to create space before deciding what the feeling means. A small space between “I feel this” and “This is what it means.” In that space, you can begin to notice what is actually coming up. Not to fix it, not to label it right away, but to understand it.
There is a version of you that already holds what you are looking for. Connection, presence, aliveness. But it does not always show up loudly. It shows up in moments that feel subtle, and sometimes confusing. Moments that catch your attention and make you feel something you were not expecting.
Those moments are not there to pull you away from yourself. They are there to bring you back.
If this is something you have been experiencing, I invite you to listen to this week’s podcast episode, (is at the end of this blog) where I walk through this from a more personal and reflective space. Sometimes hearing it in a different way helps it land differently.
Before you follow a feeling, sit with it. Not everything needs a story. Not everything needs a next step. Some things are simply asking: can you notice me without turning me into something else?
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