Free to Feel

     Take a moment to close your eyes and think back to a time when you were a small child, to a time when you felt really upset. If you can't recall a specific time, just imagine one. In this memory, how did your small self cope with feeling upset? 

     Did you head to the pantry to grab a snack to numb the pain? Did you head to your room to vigorously clean up your toys, burying yourself in work? Did you pour yourself a stiff glass of kool-aid? How about turn on the tv to mindlessly watch cartoons? Maybe you went on a shopping spree at toys-r-us to help you forget about the upsetting incident? 

    In all likelihood, none of these examples above resonate, because most of us as children, and most kids in general express their emotions and express them in big ways: they cry, they scream, they throw tantrums! And while I was using some humor with those previous examples, that IS how most of us deal with our emotions as adults. In fact, I wouldn't call it "dealing" so much as numbing. Instead of feeling things like we did as children, we numb with food, busyness, alcohol, social media, mindless tv, work, shopping, you name it! We tend to avoid feeling our emotions at all costs. 

    How does this happen? How do we go from these small creatures that feel everything and express everything we feel to adults who find it too painful to feel, don't remember how to feel, or can't even name what we're feeling? 

    Now I'm going to ask you to go back in time again. Can you think back to times when you cried, screamed, or threw a tantrum? When you were expressing those emotions, how did the adults around you respond? Were you ever told to stop crying? Stop yelling? Maybe you received some kind of punishment or consequence for throwing tantrums? Can you recall experiencing really positive emotions, expressing those, and still receiving negative feedback from an adult? Personally, I can recall many times as a child when I would get so excited I would burst out in laughter or talk louder than normal, just to be reprimanded by a teacher for being "too loud" and "disruptive". I can also recall times I felt one way, but was told to act another way -- like maybe I was feeling upset or nervous, but I was told I had to smile. Does that resonate at all? 

    These are just some examples of how our relationship with our emotions can be impacted at an early age. We're born free to feel, but early on, we're conditioned to believe and act otherwise. We're taught that it's not always okay to feel our feelings, that sometimes we need to hide those feelings, and sometimes we will even be punished for expressing our feelings. We go from these beautiful, vulnerable little beings who were created to feel and express a wide spectrum of emotions to adults who are so afraid of feeling that we run, hide and distract ourselves from everything that is slightly uncomfortable, to the detriment of our emotional, relational, mental and even physical health. 

    Yes, you read that right... not allowing our emotions to fully process can affect our holistic health. I won't count all the ways, but here are a few examples that might resonate... Can you recall a period of time when your stress was high, and eventually you felt tension in your neck and shoulders? Have you ever experienced a headache from stress? Maybe you haven't experienced this personally, but perhaps you've heard of people dealing with chronic stress getting ulcers? These are just a few examples of the countless ways emotions can manifest physically. 

    How can the way we experience our emotions affect us relationally? Think of someone you're really close to, someone you really care about. Now recall a time that you were able to be really vulnerable and shared something with that person. Or maybe they opened up and shared something with you, and you two shared a deep conversation. How did you feel in that moment? Afterwards? My hunch is that it felt really good to share and that you felt more connected to that person during the exchange and afterwards. 

    So if vulnerability and willingness to share our emotions is a requisite for connection, it's fair to say that relationships in which vulnerability and sharing are difficult or absent, there can be a lack of deep connection. You've heard of people talk about surface level friendships? Those friendships where you talk about the weather, current events, people in your friend circle... you know, all the surface level stuff... but you never really go deep? That is what happens in relationships where sharing and vulnerability don't exist. We tend to stay on the surface and rarely form a lasting, deep, meaningful connection. 

    Even if we avoid surface level friendships and keeping things surface level ourselves, this lack of connection can happen in even in our closest, most intimate relationships if we're not intentional about creating space for vulnerability and connection. And if we tend to avoid or run away from our own big, difficult emotions, it can be even harder to share them with someone else OR to hold space for someone who's wanting or needing to share with us. 

    The longer we've run from our feelings and those coping mechanisms have become habit, the easier it is to feel like that's just normal. Avoiding and suppressing our emotions becomes our "autopilot" way of operating, and the lack of connection in our relationships might feel normal too. But what happens when BIG emotions do come up? How do we express them to another person if we don't have much practice or experience feeling those feelings ourselves?? How do we hold space for another person if we don't have practice holding space for ourselves? How do we communicate our feelings to someone else if we have relatively no practice with emotional literacy? This is exactly how our relational health can be impacted by avoiding our emotions. 

    If this hits home, I have good news for you: there is a cure for the fear of feeling! That relationship we had with our emotions as children -- one where we can feel everything and feel safe to express it -- is one that can absolutely be rebuilt. Like with anything that feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable, it can make it easier to ease into it... like getting into cool water! It all depends on the person, but you can try sticking a toe in, then stepping your feet in, staying there until you get used to it, and slowly going deeper while giving yourself time to acclimate. If you're a cannonball in type of person, consider trying it this way just to start ;) 

     The first thing to do is to just notice: notice when you feel those signs of discomfort and you feel yourself turning away from the more uncomfortable emotions. If you notice the urge to turn to some of those familiar sources of numbing, this is a great sign that an uncomfortable feeling might be bubbling up. As you notice those nudges, one thing you try is to just sit with it. To allow yourself to ease in, you can try setting a timer and see if you can just sit with whatever is coming up for 60 seconds. Because the lifespan of an emotion is only about 60-90 seconds (this is without us feeding into it or ignoring it), this can give you a lot of great practice with not only sitting in the discomfort, but also with allowing motions to move through you. 

     Once this practice becomes easier for you, you can build on it. The next step in getting more comfortable with emotions is re-learning how to name them. Putting a name with a feeling makes it easier, over time to recognize the feelings when they bubble up, and the familiarity can make it easier to sit with the feeling. When you're beginning, it might be hard to name a feeling. It definitely was difficult for me at first! If it's hard for you too, using an emotion wheel or emotion cards (emotion card examples) can be a really helpful tool as you're getting more familiar with the whole spectrum of feelings. 

     The next step is to create space between yourself and the emotion. This step can be really helpful in reducing any judgment or shame you might feel around experiencing different emotions. For example, if you've been taught that feeling angry is bad, or feeling sad or expressing sadness is weak, creating this little bit of space can be a great way to separate yourself from that emotion. When we say "I am angry", we're closely identifying ourselves with that emotion. If you harbor judgment around that emotion, there's a good chance you're going to judge yourself or feel a lot of shame when that emotion comes up. The strategy I use is really simple and super effective. Instead of saying "I am _(emotion)__", you simple swap "I am" for "I feel". That simple swap helps our brain separate ourselves from a temporary feeling, and removing that judgment can, over time, make it so much easier to feel and allow those emotions to pass through. So after you identify what you're feeling, try making that statement about how you're feeling: "I feel excited," "I feel angry," and notice how that small change makes a difference in how you feel about experiencing emotions. 

    Remember how I mentioned earlier how unprocessed emotions can manifest physically? The next step can be really helpful with reducing those manifestations! Once you've sat with the feeling, named it, and created that separation, take a moment to see if you can notice where you feel it in your body. If it's hard at first, that is ok and it's pretty normal. Continue to give yourself time to just sit and notice where you're feeling that feeling. Do you feel tightness in your stomach? Energy radiating from your chest/heart? As you practice, in time it will become easier to identify where you're feeling the emotion, but there's also a tool that can help you speed up your learning. To re-establish that mind-body connection more quickly, you can try body scan meditations. 

     Once you've located where you're feeling that sensation in your body, take another 60 seconds and try to use your breath to breathe into any spaces that feel tense, uncomfortable or unfamiliar. Once you've breathed into those spaces, pause and see if you notice a difference. 

     If you've gone through this whole sequence and you can still feel those sensations in your body, that may be your body's way of telling you that there's more to do to process the emotion you're feeling. If you've made it this far, give yourself a big high five... that is some MAJOR feeling progress! From here, just ask yourself, how can I express this emotion? If it's sadness, can you allow yourself to cry? If it's anger, can you find a pillow to scream into or to punch? If it's joy, can you laugh or make another joyful noise? If it's stress, how can you move your body in a way that will allow the stress to move all the way through you? 

     One final thing that has helped me experience my emotions more fully and build a better relationship with them is journaling about this process. I don't do it every time, but it helps me to record my experiences with some of the more intense emotions. 

     I hope you will consider giving this process a try, and if it helps, let me know! I strongly believe that we can rebuild or relationship with our emotions and that doing so makes us healthier in mind, body and soul, and it makes our relationships with ourselves and our loved ones so much deeper and more meaningful. It's a learning and it takes work and practice, but it is SO worth it to have richer, more meaningful experiences. And if you need permission, this is your permission to be FREE to FEEL!