The Importance of Feeling Our Feelings
Human emotions are incredibly complicated and at the same time incredibly simple. Did you know there are more than 34,000 documented human emotions that are able to be narrowed down into 27 different categories.
Most cultures across the globe have been taught to avoid unpleasant emotions at all costs, especially anger for women and sadness for men. Feeling our feelings can be complicated and uncomfortable and that alone contributes to drug and alcohol abuse, unhealthy relationships with food, and drives us to make less than ideal choices sometimes all for the sake of numbing and suppressing unhappy or uncomfortable feelings.
One of the best things you can do for yourself and something that will improve the quality of your life exponentially is the practice of truly feeling your feelings, even the ones you might not want to. If that’s something that sounds difficult or you need some guidance on how to do so, this is the blog post for you.
Feeling our emotions and not judging them allows us to connect to ourselves on a deeper level.
All of our emotions are parts of ourselves and they all deserve a spot at the table, even if we are talking about “uglier” emotions like anger or jealousy. Getting to the root of our emotions and what causes them is us getting a step closer to understanding who we are and why we operate the way that we do. When you think you’ve dealt with something, but really just pushed it to the side or buried it underneath food or liquor or online shopping the emotion doesn’t leave, it just stays in the body and starts to affect multiple aspects of your life.
❤️ When your trust is betrayed and you just push past it, your subconscious will tell you that no one can be trusted and you’ll find yourself being wary and paranoid of everyone around you, waiting for them to hurt you just like the other person did.
❤️ When your heart is broken and you feel a deep sadness but don’t address it, you will make choices in your daily life that can actually lead to more sadness and feelings of depression.
❤️ When someone hits your car and drives away and you feel anger, but you ignore the anger and act like it doesn’t matter, you will take out your anger on all the people around you who don’t deserve it.
That’s the funny thing about emotions, you can’t get rid of them or process them until you invite them in and sit with them.
Emotions can also prepare the body to take action. The amygdala, in particular, is responsible for triggering emotional responses that prepare your body to cope with things like fear and anger.
Every feeling and emotion that you experience is teaching you something.
Let’s take anger for example, when you feel anger a lot of the time that is your body standing up for you because it feels as if you aren’t being treated fairly. Anger is a defense against abuse and mistreatment.
Anger isn’t always productive, and stewing in it for days on end isn’t conducive to our growth or long term goals, but too many people (especially women) bury their anger and try to act like it doesn’t exist. Doing this is telling your body that it’s not valid to want to protect you, furthering a disconnect between yourself and your inner voice. Learn how to invite anger in, listen to the injustice it’s trying to tell you about and take the steps to handle it accordingly.
One of the biggest reasons to feel your emotions is that you cannot pick and choose which emotions to numb and which to let run full force. So in numbing yourself to pain, anger, and sadness, you also numb yourself from happiness, creativity, and desire for life. Think of your feelings as waves in the ocean, they come and go, rise and fall.
No feeling lasts forever…anger and sadness are necessary, helpful parts of the human experience. Just like we need to eat our vegetables to fuel our body one way, we also can enjoy chocolate and its benefits in another way. You truly need both sides of the spectrum to enjoy the beauty found in all parts of life. You cannot appreciate the “good” without enduring/experiencing the “bad.”
Additionally, all of our emotions contain gifts and help us grow as people. At the end of the day there is really no such thing as a “bad” emotion, all that exists is our judgment of the emotion itself.
Allowing yourself to FEEL prevents you from becoming stuck in your emotions. When we avoid our feelings, we tune out important clues as to who we are. We limit our capacity for self-understanding and growth, and potentially fail to fully experience or shape our lives.
Make friends with your feelings. Notice the discomfort in your body, ask yourself which emotions are asking for attention, invite them for tea and sit with them. Make them feel seen, heard, and understood. Then watch how quickly you feel them move on and leave room for other things to happen within you. You don’t need to be scared or intimidated by your feelings, allow yourself to fully feel them.
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