Liberation: To Feel or To Float in Life
Sometimes I am happy.
Sometimes I am sad.
Sometimes I am very angry.
And sometimes, I am happy again.
I feel it all. Do you?
Art title: Liberation [Painted in layers of emotions, each layer a feeling. Liberation is acceptance, the quiet art of embracing our emotions as proof of life]
We all have feelings, yet somewhere along the way we learned to hide them. We started labelling emotions as “too much,” “dramatic,” “emo,” “too sensitive.” We turned tears into silence, anger into polite laughter, sadness into “I’m fine,” and swept the rest under the carpet, because somewhere along growing up, we were taught that we need to be in control of our feelings and to never lose our cool.
What if adulthood isn’t about learning to suppress emotions and what if it’s about unlearning that suppression? What if strength isn’t composure, but rather, the honesty to admit what we feel? When did we start believing that feeling less meant that we are doing better?
Adulthood changes us:
Not because we don’t feel, but because we were never taught to hurt out loud
See how the artwork transformed over time - each layer an emotion; each layer a feeling
The fact is, we all have feelings. It’s not about controlling them, but learning to live with them. Life is a beautiful myriad of emotions and experiences where some days are bright, some days are rainy, some days burst into rainbows, and some days turn storm-like.
It’s a beautiful thing to feel life fully, rather than to simply float through it unscathed. Yet, many of us choose the safety of floating, keeping life steady and predictable; a life where nothing hurts too deeply, while nothing moves too deeply either.
Would you choose to float or would you choose to feel it all:
To open yourself fully to love, even when it might not last
To walk through beginnings without turning away, even knowing endings may come
To see beauty even in heartbreaks, because pain means you truly cared
Comfort has its peace, but it can also become the softest kind of numbness; because if you don’t risk, you might never truly experience life at all.
It will be harder this way. We lose more, we ache more, but we also Live More: where laughter rings louder, love runs deeper, sunsets glow richer, and quiet moments feel more alive. Our hearts, though bruised, learn to hold both grief and gratitude in the same breath.
In the end, that’s what Liberation asks of us and it’s our choice to feel or to float in life. Emotions are a proof that we’re still human, still feeling and still living. To embrace them all, that’s Liberation
A little art reveal here - video from my IG @xiting.art
This piece became bigger than I imagined, and somehow, so was the feeling behind it. Seeing it in real life gave a sense of scale that no photo could capture — the size, the colours and the weight of emotions that built it layer by layer.
Celebrating Liberation today, in art, in self, and in every choice to feel life fully
To Feel or to Float in Life — Your choice
