What to do About Feelings?

Have you ever had an emotion that you wish you did not have? Maybe sadness? Anger? Hopelessness? Fear? The goal is not to convince ourselves that we don’t feel these things, instead it is to comfort, validate, and be with the parts of ourselves who feel these emotions. 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never changed from sadness to happiness by simply forcing myself to feel happy. It reminds me of the experience that many of us with anxiety have had in our lives. You are overcome with fear, panic, and anxiety and some tells you to “calm down.” “Thanks! I hadn’t thought of that.” *insert sarcastic eye-roll emoji* I think the same can be said for parts of us that hold sadness or hopelessness. Simply telling ourselves to “get over it” or “stop feeling it” will not actually make this feeling go away. Go back to the anxiety analogy from earlier. When someone tells me to “calm down” when I feel anxious it doesn’t take my anxiety away, instead it usually does two other unhelpful things. It either brings on the feeling of shame “something is wrong with me,” “I should be able to stop feeling like this” or at the very least it solidifies in my mind that this person is not someone I can share my feelings with. 

What if instead we treated ourselves like our dearest friend? When we feel sadness, fear, or hopelessness what if instead of self-shaming or stuffing our emotions even deeper we responded by telling ourselves “Of course you feel this way,” “I’m here with you,” “You don’t have to feel this alone,” “There is space here for these feelings.” I don’t know about you but when people I love tell me these things when I am feeling difficult emotions I feel safe and the feelings often do not feel as scary.

Here’s the cool thing about emotions, when we shove them down, invalidate, or shame them, they often get bigger, scarier, or come out in more unpredictable ways. When we make space for ourselves to feel these emotions they don’t have to go to these lengths to get our attention and actually become much more manageable.

If this is resonating with you, here is something to try next time you feel an uncomfortable emotion.

1. Notice the feeling

2. Get curious about the feeling and label it

3. Ask yourself “What do I  need to know about this feeling?”

4. Start talking to yourself “I’m here with you while you are feeling this way” “It makes sense you feel this way”

 

Instead of pushing feelings away, self-shaming, or catastrophizing, what if we tried self-validation, kindness, and making space for emotions?

 

 

Blog by Sara Pogue, MSW, LICSW
Photo by Vie Studio via Pexels