Can't comment on what emotions are like for other people, but I have experienced a shift in not only my feelings, but how my feelings feel. Sounds funny, but what I mean is that the way I relate to my own feelings plays a role for me in how I experience them. In the past few years, I've been through a rather big grief, and at times when I can tap into the expected painful of the loss and accept it as where I am in the moment, it feels different than if I beat up on myself for "still" feeling something strongly. Sometimes I feel grateful that I can feel something painful, because it's better than being numb or wooden.

I feel that way about love, whether it's for my therapist, my child, or others in the orbit of my world. I'm glad to experience it as a feeling and don't attach meaning to it that causes me pain. The types of meaning that cause me pain include (in the case of a loss) "I will never find another partner; I'll be alone the rest of my life" or "I wish he would leave his wife and be with me" or "love isn't worth it." Maybe it's the judging of my emotions as negative that's part of my problem. But just the little ripple of pleasure to feel connected to another person, which is what love feels like to me, the exquisite purity of what feels like an exercise of essential humanness, I try to welcome it for what it is. It makes me feel lucky.