Here’s a fun fact you probably wouldn’t expect to come out of the mouth of someone in my profession: I am naturally not very adept at dealing with my emotions.
“What? Isn’t that sort of your whole thing as a therapist?!”
Well. Sort of.
I guess that’s the expectation.
In reality, I don’t have to be good at feeling my feelings; I need to be good at helping you feel your feelings. After all, therapy sessions are about the client’s experience, not mine!
However, I do not like this double standard and feel like I’d be a cheap excuse for holistic health had I not taken intentional steps to fill in my internal emotional deficit over the last 15 years.
Here’s where things went south for me and my emotions: my birth.
I was born into a family with many strengths, but none related to “feeling our feelings,” acknowledging our feelings, or even being aware that we have them, let alone knowing what to call them.
Growing up in my house, it was ok to feel happy, excited, silly, loving, or anything in the anger family (annoyed, irritable, frustrated, pissed off, etc.). Feeling hurt, sad, lonely, left out, insecure, or any of the more vulnerable emotions was not ok. No one sat down and told me this directly, but really, no one had to. This is what my family modeled as I was growing up.
Question for reflection: What emotions were ok in your family growing up? What was not ok to feel? How did you know?
Question to make yourself sick: What emotional rules and limitations am I modeling to my children now?
To recap my emotional life until about 15 years ago:
Powerful emotions- totally ok. Vulnerable emotions- ew.
I got away with living like this until I started dating my husband. He is entirely emotionally fluent, essentially a SCUBA diver of deep emotional waters. It is his true home.
What on earth was God thinking putting us together??
I think He was thinking, “I’m going to help you soften up, you brute beast.”
You can guarantee that if you can’t handle vulnerable feelings, you’re not going to reach true emotional intimacy. In order to have a thriving and beautiful marriage, I needed to have the capacity for emotional intimacy. So there I was: Me…fairly emotionally inept. Him..speaking the language of emotion as if it’s his native tongue.
I was at an impasse.
So, I set out on a journey to cultivate my relationship with my emotions.
Here’s what I did.
Step One: Admit that I have emotions.
When I first started this journey of navigating my emotions, I would have said I didn’t have many emotions; I just had thoughts. I also believed that thoughts were superior to emotions because they aren’t so subjective and open to changing with the wind.
I was deluded to think this way, and so much data is now disproving this myth. We are all emotional beings, and we experience emotion much quicker than our logical minds. Our decisions and preferences are emotional. Humans are emotional. Some of us are better at suppressing it than others. (And some of us also have medical issues to complement this trait!)
Step Two: Notice when an emotion comes up.
The second step for my emotion-minimizing self was to notice when emotions came up in me. This took a long time because I had carefully crafted the skill of emotional suppression. What a travesty!
God gave us emotions to guide us and provide us with helpful information. To suppress one’s feelings to the expert level that I did is simply unkind to myself.
The question that helps this come online is, “Where do I notice this emotion in my body?”
- Let’s dive a little deeper:
- Where do you notice jealousy?
- What happens to your temperature when you feel shame?
- Where is the pain in your body when you feel betrayed?
- Where do you notice pressure when you feel stressed out?
Our bodies are incredibly helpful in bringing awareness to the fact that emotions are happening inside of us. I wrote about listening to your body a few weeks ago, and you can read it here.
Step Three: Name the emotion.
Thirdly, we have to actually name the emotion. This is where I honestly struggle, even to this day. If you asked me to name three emotions I have had today, I could give you two easily. For the third one, I will probably need to see a list. And that’s ok! Because trying to figure it out counts as figuring it out!
I found that the language I used for naming emotions was very broad, but drilling down to a more specific emotion can highlight the nuance of my feelings.
Here are two accessible resources for naming emotions: a list of emotion words and an emotion wheel.
Brené Brown has a book called Atlas of the Heart that explains the definitions of different emotions. While it does read like a textbook, it is incredibly helpful in pinpointing specific emotions.
Why is naming it so essential? Specific names unlock understanding — for you and those with whom you communicate.
If all else fails in me pinpointing my emotion, it always helps to “phone a friend.” Sometimes, this entails going to a trusted person who knows me well and asking, “What do you think I’m feeling right now?” They often can tell quickly, but my gut will tell me what’s right even if they’re wrong. Alternatively, because I am usually better at understanding what someone is feeling by the look on their face, I sometimes will look in a mirror. These hacks may make me seem a little remedial about understanding emotions, but putting in the effort is what matters most!
Step Four: Sit with the emotion.
This is the most annoying part. (It’s a good thing annoyance has been in my emotional wheelhouse my whole life.) Now that we have noticed it and named it, we have to make friends with it.
I know. Ew.
That emotion is here to bring you helpful information about yourself or the situation. It is valid and vital, and we must treat it as such. It may be inconvenient or even a little cringy, but it deserves our attention. If we don’t give it our attention, things get…weird.
It comes out sideways, towards the wrong person, or about a different topic…or you might get a stomach ulcer. The list isn’t good. And not dealing with your feelings soon becomes way more inconvenient than just sitting with it in the first place.
You have to sit with this stuff and honor it. When you feel your feelings, actually sit with them without judgment or hurrying them out of the door, the emotion becomes like a wave. It’ll rise up in you, crest, and then begin to slip away. This is what’s meant to happen.
The surprising thing about emotions is that the more you mean to feel them, the quicker you get back to baseline. All that time I spent minimizing, denying, distracting, etc., was making them bigger and stay longer. Ew.
Wrap Up:
Now you know my secret. I am not naturally good at caring for my emotions and can occasionally still forget that I even have emotions. But the good news is, if I can improve in this area, anyone can. Making space for my emotions has made my life and relationships richer, more authentic, and more beautiful. It’s almost like it was God’s design or something!
