If you’ve been around for a while, you definitely know I’m a huge fan of giving things names. And you’d definitely understand how much satisfaction it brings me now to be coming across a phrase that gives the process of naming things, a name too. 😁

I love this. So much. It reminds me of my first couple of sessions when my therapist used to ask me how I feel after talking to her about anything, and I’d just go blank. Every time. She’d still so gently help me give a name to the feeling I knew so well yet couldn’t express. And every time she’d do it, I’d feel like crying. Now it’s starting to make some sense; my “right-downstairs” brain seems to have been neglected for so many years, that whenever she’d come close to it, it’d cause a reaction; someone was finally acknowledging its existence. It was a mixture of ouch-this-hurts, why-haven’t-I-felt-this-in-here-before, and omg-it’s-not-just-in-my-head. It wasn’t really the “validation” I got from her, as much as it was the realization that if someone out there has actually spent time to give something (that I’m experiencing too) a name, it must’ve hurt them just as bad. It might be a feeling of belonging… to something out there that’s bigger than me, or a world that I didn’t know existed, but that just a name could open all its shades for me instantly.

Naming things has never made them fade away, and that’s what I’ve slowly come to learn about its purpose. You name it, really, to tame it. To make it lose some of its power. To learn to hug it, when it needs that too. To calm down your system, so that you can find it in you to deal with this crazy world.

— P.S. It hurts so bad when someone gives you the wrong name for something you feel, so make sure you’re always getting the right name from the right person, otherwise your entire system might catch fire instead. 😅