Do Emotions Colonize or Dominate Feelings?

Art and Photo Cred: Dorothy Attakora-Gyan

There was a point during my Ph.D. when I was really frustrated because I struggled to articulate and translate what I was feeling into words. I mentioned how finding language felt like words were colonizing my felt, lived, and embodied experiences. It was like finding words for what refused to be contained through language. That experience drew my attention to a course I signed up for called Re-Languaging Regeneration: Retiring European Thoughtforms, Awakening Indigenous Expression hosted by Tiokasin Ghosthorse and Gabriel Kram. In today's session, Tiokasin talked about the concept of emotions dominating feelings. As a shame researcher, I've been sitting with that idea. He also mentioned that in ancient Greece, mourning was illegal. This new information helps me to understand our resistance to grieving. It's like the 5th Century is very much still alive in the 21st Century.

This post discusses some of my unformulated thoughts on today's thought-provoking session.

I'm intentionally not transcribing the video and not writing a blog post because it defeats the purpose of the topic. I wanted to free-flow and organically [think] through and [feel] the process. I didn't want my words to colonize the moment, though I inevitably still do, by virtue of talking about it.

Please refer to the YouTube video for closed captioning and video. Soundcloud audio is also available.