Feeling your emotions can be as rough as it is elating. Talking about our feelings especially the unpleasant ones can be a tough topic because sometimes feelings hurt.
Sometimes the feelings that we have about our feelings are not always friendly.
So what do we do when this happens?
We deny, repress, sublimate, and medicate our way out of fully experiencing and processing the things we don’t want to feel.
So how then do we take back our power to feel back? How do we get comfortable learning the range of emotions that exist and identify what it is we are experiencing? How do we reap the benefits of feeling our feelings?
Why it is important to feel
Feelings help us stay connected to others
We can strengthen human connections by allowing ourselves to feel. Unpacking our emotions with safe people allows us to connect on a deeper, more human level with those around us. Feeling our feelings helps us express to those we care about how we feel. It also allows us to develop empathy, increased awareness, and compassion. These traits make us more relatable and allow others to feel safe trusting us in return.
Feelings are indicators
If we tap into feeling our feelings, it will be easy for us to know how to respond to various situations. When we feel safe, we are likely to be comfortable. When we feel happy we are likely to keep doing what it is we are doing. When we are scared or uncomfortable, we are likely to move away from a dangerous situation.
We can express our needs better We become more aware of what we need when we are in tune with our feelings. We are likely to be more compassionate when expressing our needs when we have worked on responsibly feeling our feelings.
Our feelings can be positive motivators
A great example could be that feeling uncomfortable can make you work towards comfort.
Feelings can also provide us with clues to ourselves
They can give us insight into our desires, wants, and ambitions.
It is exhausting to try and avoid your feelings
If we avoid our feelings, we are likely to mask them or engage in numbing responses which make us struggle and are more costly in the long run.
Why we avoid unpleasant feelings?
We have been trained to avoid feelings
Some of us grew up in families where not all our feelings were welcomed with compassion and understanding. If you come from a strict African household then these might have featured somewhere in your childhood. “Why are you crying? I’ll give you something to cry about!” and “Stop crying. There is nothing to cry about” Statements like these make it very difficult for children to understand what they feel, why they feel and how they can communicate what it is they are going through.
It can’t be easy for someone who has grown up knowing their feelings are not safe or acceptable.
We fail to view the unpleasant feelings as indicators that something is not right within
If we do not know how important our feelings are in protecting our wellbeing, especially the unpleasant ones such as anxiety, fear and discomfort, then we are likely to avoid and even suppress these feelings, putting us in harm's way.
We end up judging ourselves for feeling unpleasant feelings. We believe our feelings aren’t acceptable or morally right and end up beating ourselves as we go through the tough feelings. If you find yourself saying things like “I should not be feeling this”, “I have no right to feel this way” or “I am a bad person for wanting this”, chances are you are avoiding your unpleasant feelings by judging yourself for feeling them.
We want to make everyone around us comfortable We are afraid we will lose people when we express ourselves.
We don’t know how to work through it. Most of the times we will avoid feeling unpleasant feelings because we do not have the tools to work through them and regain control.
How we avoid our feelings
Repressing or denying feelings.
This can affect our physical health. We will find ourselves experiencing random headaches, stomach disorders, backaches, and generally weakened immunity which can open the door to many illnesses.
Furthermore, it can lead us into trouble with overeating, not eating, alcohol and other drug use, compulsive sexual behaviours, compulsive spending, not sleeping enough, sleeping too much, obsessing, controlling gestures, and other compulsive behaviours.
We may think that repressing our feelings may make them go away but the truth of it is these feelings don’t go away until we face them. They may even grow stronger.
Avoiding staying still For many, the primary impulse when they are experiencing unpleasant emotions is to try to escape from those feelings through alcohol, drugs, restricting food, binging, busyness, compulsive sex, or a variety of other self-harming behaviours.
If we find ourselves avoiding sitting in silence and always in spaces where we cannot hear our thoughts, then that could be a sign that we are avoiding our feelings. There is a difference between unwinding after a long week and overindulgence in numbing coping mechanisms to repress what we are going through emotionally.
How to do it right
Become aware of how we deal with our emotions Do we blame people for our feelings? Do we feel responsible for other people’s feelings? How do we respond to uncomfortable feelings? Are we likely to respond or react? Do you take on too much?
As we work on being more aware, it will be clear that nobody makes anyone feel; no one is ultimately responsible for our feelings except us. We have that power. People act and sometimes we are affected and in response, we make the choice to feel the emotion we feel best suits their action. We may feel disappointed because someone didn’t meet our expectations but at the end of the day, the expectations we set on this person is the reason we are disappointed.
This is not to say that some people will not intentionally push us to undesirable feelings but once we are more aware of how we feel and respond, we are in a better space to control what level of attention and emotion we want to give to their actions.
Others cannot change the way we feel. We make the decision to move from one emotion to another. Whether that is a shift from a desirable emotion to a less desirable one or the other way around, it is all in our control.
In the same breath, we are not responsible for anyone else’s feelings. What we are responsible for is being decent human beings by acknowledging that people go through feelings just as we do. The extent we are ready to be considerate of their feelings tells a lot about who we are and what we have control over because if we struggle with being codependent, then it will be very easy for us to take responsibility for how others feel and end up losing ourselves trying to make everyone else whole.
Stick to the facts
We have to be real with what has happened to get to the point where we are struggling with our feelings. Are we anxious about a project we are to present? Is rejection by someone we liked making us feel shame? Have we let ourselves down and are feeling disappointed?
His might not apply to all cases because sometimes if we are not aware of our triggers, we may feel confused about why we are feeling the unpleasant emotions.
Allow ourselves to feel Figuring out what you feel is the first step. Unfortunately, for many of us, we can only name about 5 emotions. We are not trained in the range of emotions one can feel. In order for us to be in control, we need to know what we are feeling. We can tell by being aware of what our bodies respond. When we note that we have tense muscles, a clenched jaw and feelings of restlessness, it will be easy to tell that something is not right within.
Feel your feelings. We should not censor, block or run from our feelings.
Cry about it if you feel overwhelmed. It is a healthy thing to do as we have seen earlier in the benefits section. By having an accepting attitude toward negative emotions, we are not giving them as much attention as we would if we spent even more energy trying to repress them.
It might not be simple because we have been trying to avoid feeling some feelings such as disappointment, anger and anxiety because of our ego or how society views these feelings.
We have to remind ourselves that there is nothing wrong with feeling any emotion and work on showing more compassion and understanding towards ourselves.
We are not our feelings.
This is because no feeling lasts forever. Our feelings do not qualify as personality traits. We are more than what we feel. We are not angry people because we experience feelings of anger. We are not resentful people because we struggle with feelings of resentment.
Timing
There are times (i.e. if you are at work or school) when it is not always possible to process our feelings in the moment, which is when we can employ healthy coping strategies such as breathing exercises and taking a short walk outside. We then can go back to processing our feelings when we are in a better place to do so.
Look at what is in out control We allow ourselves to feel and because we have control over how we feel, we then need to see what we can do to make sure that we do not get too caught up in an emotion especially if it is one that doesn’t help us show up as our best selves.
We need to be clear about what is in our control. For some feelings, we could have healthy ways to deal with them that work for us such as calming our minds through activities like going out for a walk or resting.
We could look outside ourselves and ask for help. We could ask our friends to remind us that we have control over our feelings. They can also communicate when they see us trying to repress or deny our feelings.
We could also seek professional help so as to really know what makes us struggle with feeling our feelings and they can equip us with practical tools to gain control over how we feel.
Sometimes dealing with our feelings means a change of thinking is needed. If we remind ourselves that we are in control and no one changes how we feel except us, then it will get easier to work through our feelings and take charge of how we feel.
I hope that those who are working on feeling their feelings, remind themselves to do so authentically and give themselves the grace to take it a day at a time.
Love, Sabali