Emotional Exploration: Nostalgic

We are back at it again, exploring emotions that you might not have heard of or taken much time to think too deeply about. For those who are new here, the emotional exploration series is a series looking at various emotions to expand our understanding and vocabulary when it comes to emotions. The reasoning behind this is that knowledge is power, and the more words we have to describe how we feel, the better we can understand ourselves and express this understanding to others.

This month on emotional exploration we are looking at nostalgia, or feeling nostalgic, a feeling that many may already be familiar with, but will likely not have thought all too deeply about. Nostalgia is a happy but also sad feeling, bittersweet perhaps, we get when remembering things that have happened in our past.

This longing for what once was can come in many forms, but perhaps the most common will be a fond memory of old TV shows, video games, and times with friends or families when we were young. Often linked with the idea of “simpler times” when we were younger and had fewer responsibilities.

Nostalgia can be a real delight to sit and reminisce on with friends or family, especially those who share the same or similar memories. It can be nice to share old stories and recall times that are no more, and that bittersweet feeling that comes with can be nice every once in a while.

The trouble with feeling nostalgic is when we chase those feelings again without reflecting on them and understanding them fully. A simple example of this is being reminded of a TV show you used to watch when you were young. So you hunt down the TV show, maybe find it on YouTube or an old recording on a VHS at the back of a cupboard somewhere. Yet, once you sit down to watch it, those fond memories are lost as the show is not as good as you remembered it. This is a common experience for many when it comes to reliving nostalgic memories, and this is because we associate those fond feelings we remember with the activity, in this example TV show, which we were doing and not all the other factors.

How we avoid this disappointment is reflecting on all the factors that make those memories good memories. Take our example of watching TV shows when we were young. Perhaps it is not the TV show but the lack of responsibility, and school-free Saturday morning which we spent watching them, or the excitement of sharing the experience with friends, talking about it when we next met up with them.

Whilst we cannot recreate those exact circumstances again, we can understand perhaps the longing for such feelings and give ourselves little moments to relax and remember. Keeping a Saturday morning clear to relax and watch some fun TV, and even maybe reconnecting with those old friends. It won't be the same, but it might be what we need if we have found ourselves being nostalgic for those times.

So next time you find your mind wandering down a nostalgic path, think to yourself what is it that brought you there, and what about the memory makes it a fond one. For many the nostalgic memory will be enough, for others, it might be a sign that they are in need of some “simpler times”, at least for a bit.