Fear of feeling

Now that you have self-regulated by using your self-soothing kit, your left hemisphere can get back online and you have access to the cognitive functions necessary to make a decision about what you want to do next. The next step is to identify what you’re feeling now that you are no longer in fight/flight/freeze/fake.

In all honesty, our vocabulary for emotions isn’t all that great because we spend so much time trying to suppress them through denial, escapism (e.g., binge watching/drinking/shopping/scrolling/gaming), stoicism, and dissociation. Feelings are a waste of time, we think. And, more importantly, feelings are scary. What if I let myself feel and I get stuck? Like when you put a spoon in the garbage disposal in the sink and it won’t stop running?

That happened to my mom when we were kids. Which was like, 45 years ago. And to this day, she’ll tell us to make sure there isn’t a spoon or what before we turn on the garbage disposal. So it’s true that it can be traumatic to get stuck.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you won’t get stuck. You don’t need to wallow in your feelings–roll around in them, torture yourself with them, catastrophize. All you have to do is name the feelings, acknowledge that they’re valid things for any human being to feel, and then move on to some activity that will make you feel better. This is how you practice self-compassion for your feelings.

Before you start naming your feelings, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. We can experience multiple feelings at one time. This is part of the reason why it’s difficult to acknowledge our feelings. There are so many of them that we get confused and think, none of this makes sense. But it doesn’t have to make sense. That’s why feelings are separate from thoughts. We’ll talk about making sense when we get to thoughts in the next post.
2. Feelings can be contradictory. Because we can feel multiple things at the same time, it’s often the case that things that seem mutually exclusive actually go together. For example, in a post on anger, I make the point that anger and hurt go together. Similarly, joy and pain go together. You don’t feel one end of the spectrum without also feeling the other end. If you don’t feel it, it’s because you’ve suppressed the feeling on the other end because you believe there is something shameful about feeling it.
3. We can have feelings about feelings. Because we are feeling so many things at once, and these feelings are often contradictory, we often judge our feelings. You shouldn’t feel that! That doesn’t make any sense! That makes you a terrible person! As a result, guilt and shame are often two feelings that are present, but we may not be conscious of them. So check in to see if there are feelings of guilt and shame that you need to name and acknowledge.

It takes practice, naming and acknowledging your feelings. Like I said earlier, we don’t have a strong feeling vocabulary. It can help to have a list of feelings, which you can easily find on the internet. Better yet, this is what therapists do best: help you articulate what you’re feeling so that you can finally let the feelings go.

Because ironically, preventing yourself from feeling is what makes you stuck. And feeling your feelings is what will set you free. And I want you to be free.