Feel it all...

We are often taught, from a young age, that some emotions are more acceptable than others. Happiness, excitement and joy are welcomed. Sadness, anger, fear and disappointment can feel more difficult. We may be encouraged to cheer up, calm down, look on the bright side or simply get over it.

Over time, we can begin to learn that certain feelings are inconvenient, uncomfortable or somehow too much. We may become good at hiding them, pushing them down or carrying on as though they aren't there. But emotions aren't good or bad, they are simply part of being human.

Emotions are the ways in which our minds and bodies respond to what is happening within us and around us. They can tell us something about our experiences, our relationships, our needs and the things that matter to us.

The aim isn't to feel only the emotions we like. It is to become more comfortable with the full range of our emotional experience.

What are our emotions telling us?

Fear can alert us to danger and help us protect ourselves. Anger can arise when a boundary has been crossed or something important to us has been threatened. Sadness can accompany loss and remind us that something matters. Love draws us towards connection and encourages us to care for others. Even difficult emotions can carry useful information.

This doesn't mean that every feeling tells us an objective truth, or that we need to act on every emotion we experience. Emotions are information, not instructions. We can feel angry without reacting aggressively. We can feel afraid without allowing fear to make every decision for us. We can feel sad without needing to immediately make the feeling go away.

Emotional wellbeing isn't about controlling our emotions. It is about developing the capacity to experience them, understand them and choose how we respond.

Learning not to feel

Many of us learn early on which feelings are acceptable and which are not. Perhaps sadness was met with ‘chin up’, anger was discouraged, or vulnerability was seen as weakness. Maybe you became the strong one, the reliable one, the person who coped without needing much from anyone else. Sometimes these patterns develop without anyone intending them to. We may simply grow up around people who don't know how to express or tolerate difficult emotions themselves. So we adapt. We learn to hold things in. We become good at appearing calm, capable and self-sufficient. From the outside, this can look like emotional stability. But suppressing emotion isn't the same as regulating emotion. 

When we repeatedly push feelings away, we can gradually lose touch with what is happening within us. We may become less certain about what we want, what we need, what feels right or where our boundaries lie. We might say yes when we mean no. Stay in situations that don't feel right. Put other people's needs before our own. Or experience a persistent sense that something isn't quite right without knowing what it is. Sometimes, becoming more emotionally aware means beginning to listen to the feelings we have spent years learning to ignore.

We don't have to be one thing

There is another layer to this. We don't only learn which emotions are acceptable. We can also develop ideas about the kind of person we are supposed to be. The good daughter. The dependable friend. The successful professional. The patient parent. The strong one. The easy-going one. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be kind, caring or dependable. These can be important values. The difficulty comes when we believe we have to be these things all of the time.

However, a kind person will sometimes feel angry, a loving person will sometimes feel frustrated, and a strong person will sometimes feel frightened. We can be reliable and still need help, or confident and still experience self-doubt. These contradictions don’t make us inadequate. They are simply part of being human.  We don't have to choose between being strong and vulnerable, loving and angry, confident and uncertain. We can be many things at once.

Feeling without being overwhelmed

Allowing ourselves to feel doesn't mean becoming consumed by our emotions. Sometimes it simply means becoming curious about what is happening rather than immediately trying to change it. Asking questions such as…

-What am I feeling?

-What happened just before I felt this?

-What might this feeling be telling me?

-What do I need?

-What matters to me here?

We may not always find a clear answer. Human emotions are rarely tidy. We can feel grateful and dissatisfied, excited and afraid, relieved and sad, sometimes all at once. We don't need to decide which feeling is the ‘right’ one. We can allow the different parts of our experience to exist together.

Sometimes it can help to talk with someone we trust, write, cry, move our bodies, spend time in nature or simply sit with an emotion without immediately trying to escape it. The goal isn't to get rid of difficult feelings. It is to develop a different relationship with them.

You don't have to be happy all the time

We live in a culture that can make happiness feel like something we should be able to achieve and maintain. But happiness, like every other emotion, comes and goes. A healthy emotional life isn't one in which we feel happy all of the time. It is one in which we have enough capacity to experience what is here without immediately judging ourselves for it or trying to make it disappear.

There will be joyful days and difficult ones. Times when we feel hopeful and times when we feel uncertain. We will experience excitement, frustration, tenderness, anger, grief, love and everything in between. This isn't evidence that something has gone wrong. It is part of being human.

Perhaps contentment comes not from feeling less, but from becoming more able to make room for the whole of our experience.

Feel it all

We don't need to become perfectly calm, endlessly positive or emotionally unshakeable. We can learn to meet our emotions with curiosity rather than judgement. To listen to what they might be telling us without allowing them to dictate our actions. To recognise our needs and boundaries. To allow ourselves to be vulnerable. To experience joy without needing to hold onto it, and sadness without believing it will last forever. 

We can feel an emotion without becoming that emotion. We can be anxious without being an anxious person. Angry without being an angry person. Sad without believing that sadness defines our lives.

Feeling it all doesn't mean being overwhelmed by everything we feel. It means becoming more able to stay with ourselves through all of it. We don't have to have it all together. We just have to be willing to meet ourselves honestly, with a little more compassion for the complicated, contradictory and very human person we already are.

Melanie Elliott | Psychotherapist