Breath as Emotion

A couple of weeks ago, I was rewatching one of my favorite movies, Call Me By Your Name by Luca Guadagnino. A story about a bisexual teenager, Elio, who develops a relationship with Oliver, his father’s intern. The two explore the attraction they feel over the course of one summer in the mid 80s.

One of the most emotional parts of the movie is the speech Elio’s father gives to him when he is feeling heartbroken and abandoned. In these two minutes, we see a powerful example of parenting in the father’s acceptance of diversity and total understanding of the spectrum of our feelings. This scene often has me asking: what impact can emotional education and awareness have on our human development? Are emotions as nourishing to our heart as the breath is to our body? And most importantly, how does the experience of our emotions correlate to the expression of our authentic sexual self?

Transitioning from childhood to teenage years and from there to adulthood, can be very painful journeys. So much information to process, so many expectations and demands to fulfill, so many decisions to be made. During this period, our childlike behavior and the raw honesty that comes with it, often passes slowly to oblivion.

Many social norms expect us to behave in a certain way, to express ourselves within acceptable frameworks and to format our needs in a context more understandable to others. We are taught that there are good feelings that we need to pursue, like happiness and love, and at the same time bad feelings that we need to control or reject, like sadness and jealousy.

And as our youth helplessly try to imitate the characteristics of “successful” adults, they gradually lose touch with their own emotions. In order to fit in the societal norm, we pass these feelings through a mental processor, subduing their intensity and authenticity. Joy becomes contentment, sorrow diminishes to discomfort and anger compromises with dissatisfaction. And instead of being taught a healthy way to express what we feel inside, we bury more and more of our true self until there is only a memory left.

Wouldn’t it be healthier if we were taught how to efficiently communicate our inner self and provided the judgement-free environments to do so? Shouldn’t emotions be treated as natural a function of the human existence as breath is? And if feelings were not censored, couldn’t that pave the path to truly embrace and express our sexual identities and desires?

Sexual expression has been controlled and marginalized in the majority of modern societies for centuries. Because of this, there has been an intense connection of sexual activity to feelings of shame and guilt. Talking about sexual preferences, desires and kinks is a taboo subject in many settings. It makes people uncomfortable and they often try to hide their disinclination behind the label of “private life”. But let’s be honest, is prudery what keeps us from unveiling our sexual self? Or are we choosing deliberately not to dive deeper, as we would have to openly face our fears about our innermost–and maybe even forgotten–feelings?

Allowing ourselves to feel anything is more human than feeling nothing.

We must teach our children that, as human beings, we are motivated by our emotions. Numbing our expressions in order to be cured faster or respect societal expectations, puts our potential to waste. The heart learns to hold back, to not allow anyone in and slowly reprimes all the body’s expressions. The touch becomes unbearable, the hugs do not provide stimulation, sex loses its ability to be a mental–apart from a carnal–merge. And all of that because our feelings lose their natural flow. Because they submit to an intentional massacre of our identity and expression.

Growing up while owning and respecting the spectrum of our feelings could bring us a step closer to liberating our authentic sexual identities. Learning how to engage in healthy expression of our feelings and accept them without judgement could lead us to better understanding our desires. What turns us on, what stimulates us, what urges us to experiment, what intrigues us.

Honest hearts and transparent intentions could create a life that allows our sexual expression to flow through us as a fundamental part of our human expression without negative extensions attached to it.

Creating an environment of acceptance for the new generations should be a priority.

Urging youth to hold space for and embrace their own feelings can help develop empathy towards others and is fundamental in creating a society that respects each other. In turn, the more attuned we feel to our inner self, the easier it is to express our sexual self in an unabashed yet healthy way.

And even further, providing our young people with the grounds to explore their sexual urges in a safe and healthy way could shift the culture of embarrassment and shame that has embalmed sexual expression throughout the years.

Let’s learn how to breathe through our feelings. Let’s heighten the intensity of our emotions. Let’s embrace every little aspect of what makes us human. Let’s understand our inner nature and work towards an unstigmatized expression of that self. And maybe, slowly, we will be able to identify our sexual self as an equal and non-discriminated piece of our existence. A piece that is worthy of being expressed freely and without fear.