Feeling your Feelings

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Feeling your Feelings

By Jonathan e. Hart, LPC

Human emotions are unpredictable, complex, surprising things.

Feelings. We all have them. It can be confusing when we don’t understand the feeling we are experiencing, or why we are even experiencing it in the first place. Often the feeling doesn’t seem to match the scenario that triggered it.

We humans seem rarely to question our emotions. They exist as reflexes. They occur without our choice or invitation. When we don’t understand them, we usually try to rationalize them away or turn them off. This gets us into trouble more often than not, because simply not feeling our emotional reflexes is like trying not to kick when the doctor thumps us at the knee with the little mallet.

The discipline that will help understand our emotional reflexes is to practice feeling them. Learn what they physiologically feel like. Does it burst or contract? Does it rise or fall? Does it feel like a flutter or a weight? Do I get hot or cold in my face, hands, etc.? Where in my body do I feel it? What does it make me want to do?

This may seem silly, but all of our emotions have a physiological component. We talk about our bodies and our minds and our feelings as though they are separate things. We do this because we have to in order to be able to talk about them and learn about them. But body, heart, and mind are all one thing.

Think about the last time you got startled. Chances are you jumped or twitched somehow. Your heart rate accelerated and you experienced a sharp intake of breath. You did not choose these things. They happened. They are the physiological component of the feeling of fear. It passed quickly enough when you realized that there was no real danger, but they happened nonetheless.

Slowing down and taking the time to feel our feelings is particularly difficult when the feeling that is present is a negative one like fear or anger or loss.

This process requires us to sit in the feeling, to allow it to exist without making it better. This process requires the work of deliberately NOT managing the feeling, but rather observing it in order to understand it.

When we do this, we gain an edge. We cultivate the skill of awareness. We will more quickly recognize the feeling when it arises again, and more quickly be able to understand ourselves. We gain a delay between when we feel and what we do next. We can use this delay to make a conscious, careful choice about our next step rather than simply doing what the feeling tells us to do. Particularly in relationship, this thoughtful choice can be the difference between a healthy, responsible interaction and a reactive, destructive one.

In order to begin learning how to do this, take a moment and think about a mild emotion. Don’t start with a really big feeling. Think about the physical feel of it. Cultivate an understanding of this physiological component, and pay attention. You might be surprised by how often you feel that same feeling in other places.

When you’ve got a bit of practice with this, you can begin working on larger feelings, like the ones that rise up around conflict or arguments. Again, slow down and pay attention. You may be surprised by what you learn.

“The Art of Distraction”

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“The Art of Distraction”

by: Jason Pogue, PLPC

My wife and I are soon expecting our first child. We are excited and terrified all at once, and this spurs us on to read and talk with those who have gone through it all before. Though much of what we are practicing are techniques for ‘letting go’ and letting her body do what it was made to do, some of the techniques are purely in the realm of distraction. When the pain is so great, how can you or your partner distract you from it? These techniques for childbirth aren’t much different than the “techniques” we all pick up over time in a pain-filled world. I am reminded of this statement I’ve heard from a number of different wiser and older friends and mentors:

“No human being can fully bear the weight of reality.”

Even though I agree with this statement I can often feel as though I should be able to fully bear the weight of it all…that to set the pain and sorrow aside for a moment is actually being inauthentic or callous toward others or myself. When this feeling of should is not actually coming from others, I can still shame myself for spending an hour in distraction with television, or avoiding what I think I need to be doing in that moment. But is distraction always a problem?

The truth is that reality is a mix of both beauty and brokenness – both joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. Yet often we can find the sorrow and pain winning out…snuffing out our joy. It only takes a few minutes of reading the news to be overwhelmed by the amount of violence, death, corruption, hatred, deception, and malice in the world around us. If we were to remove every bit of distraction from our lives and force our eyes open upon the unending wounds of the world, we would be swallowed up by grief. Though it is a painfully important exercise to wrestle with the big questions of life, to constantly live in this place would be simply unbearable.

The question is not whether distraction is good or bad, but what kind of distraction(s) are we involved in and how flexible are they? Taking some alone time to listen to music is a far more healthy a distraction than drinking until you black out. A good distraction, or coping-mechanism can assist you to bear through an excessively painful or overwhelming moment until you are in a safe enough place to process what has occurred.

More than just assessing the kind of distractions we engage in, a healthy arsenal of coping mechanisms assesses how flexible our distractions are – after all, you probably can’t go into a room and listen to music for an hour when you have a presentation to give at work or when your little boy is crying because he is hungry again! Consider one healthy coping mechanism of sharing what your internal experience is with someone else – this can be hugely beneficial in calming our bodies down and feeling known, but it would be entirely destructive to engage in with an abusive listener waiting to use our vulnerability against us. Sometimes the ways we’ve been wounded erode our ability to assess one person from another, and instead of engaging in the appropriate coping mechanism we simply choose one way of relating to everyone.

The problem is not distraction, or coping mechanisms – these can be a gift at times to get us through unbearable moments. The problem is when a particular distraction or coping mechanism becomes our only answer to the pain, is destructive to our lives, or continuously takes the place of ever actually returning to the pain and sorrow that resides within us and in our world.

So how are you doing with the art of distraction? If you aren’t able to cope, or are seeing destructive, rigid, or unending distraction taking over your life I invite you to give us a call to meet with a counselor, grow these skills, and process the emotional turmoil beneath it all. You have the ability to not only survive the grief of this world, but to work through it so that you can take joy in your day-to-day life. Why not start using it today?

The Healing Presence of Brutal Reality

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The Healing Presence of Brutal Reality

by: Jason Pogue, PLPC

Do you know that uncomfortable tension when you realize you are trying to be somebody or something you are not?

I’m not sure what it feels like for you. For me, it is as if my mind begins to separate itself from my heart, trying to press ahead and leave my knotted stomach and racing heart behind. If I just do these things I can pull it off and no one will know. Often my mind is so good at this that it can be in this place for weeks before I start to recognize my body aching from carrying all the tension – my tight shoulders and aching legs like clues to the mystery of where I actually am. And, no wonder it sometimes takes weeks! Prior to beginning my own counseling journey my mind was in this place for years unaware – racing ahead to avoid the deep fears of being “found out” as an imposter or discovered as someone broken beyond hope. Perhaps my mind was racing ahead at light-speed to avoid the deep pain that I didn’t know how to experience yet, unaware that this pain collects interest over time.

Recently I sat down with some colleagues to discuss an interview with a prolific psychiatrist and author, Irvin Yalom. Irvin recounted early in his career a moment when he sat in the therapy room with “a red-headed, freckled woman, a few years older than” him. In the first session, this woman shared with Irvin that she was a lesbian. Irv writes, “That was not a good start because I didn’t know what a lesbian was. I had never heard the term before.” I about burst out laughing when I first read that. This is the prolific therapist Irv Yalom! Yet even Irv has moments where he must make a choice. Am I going to try to be someone I’m not, or be real in this moment with this person?

Irv, being the gifted therapist he is, made the split-second decision that “the only way [he] could really relate to her was to be honest and to tell her [he] didn’t know what a lesbian was.” And so, he invited her to enlighten him in the coming weeks about her experience and they developed a great relationship in their work together.

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The truth that this little story reveals to me is that what we all need most is genuine and honest connection. If that exists, we can learn from each other and enjoy each other even in our differences, failures, finitude, and confusion. However, this connection is impossible when my mind is racing ahead of my heart – when I’m living in a world designed to protect me from the present, rather than risking being honest about the reality of what is happening right now.

Unfortunately the world we live in continues to tell our minds to run ahead…to forget about the moment because you have a million other things to do, too many things to worry about…or to forget about the moment because what if the moment is unbearable? And yet, it is only when we risk acknowledging the present reality of the now – when we don’t shy away from our fears, inadequacies, wounds, guilt, powerlessness – that we can ever truly enjoy the beauty in and around us and the joys of living in this world.

If you’re tired of trying to be someone you are not, what is stopping you from being who you are? What is stopping you from stopping, and entering into the reality of now?

(The interview with Irvin Yalom can be found at: https://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/irvin-yalom)

Embracing Grief Rather than Running

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by: Lianne Johnson, LPC, CCTP

shutterstock_139543490 I shared in my previous blog about my journey from fearing grief to embracing it. To embrace grief at any level requires a response from us, and it changes us.

When we choose to embrace our grief it changes who we are.

Brene’ Brown expounds on this point when she says, “Grief requires us to reorient ourselves to every part of our physical, emotional, and social worlds”.

Allowing myself to grieve allows my emotions to function as they were meant to. Acknowledging a sad day or a hard day (even if I have no idea WHY I feel sad or happy) is healthy and good for me.

When I think about my process of learning to no longer fear grief, I often think about a book I used to read to my boys called, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. It is a book about a family out in search of a bear and along the way they run into many obstacles. Each time they come across an obstacle they say, “We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no, we’ve got to go through it.”

This is how I see grief – we can’t get around it no matter how much we would like to, but we must go through it to reach our best chance at emotional healthiness.

Allowing our grief to exist acknowledges that pain, sadness, and loss are a part of our everyday lives. Acknowledging these hard and painful emotions normalizes the human condition and experience on this earth. To live is to have pain. To live is to have loss. To live is to hurt. Therefore we must acknowledge its impact.

Is Grief Good?

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Is Grief Good?

by: Lianne Johnson, LPC

shutterstock_174741554 To allow yourself to experience grief, and to choose to engage in the on-going act of grieving, is difficult and takes courage. I believe it is something we must actually choose to learn how to incorporate into our lives. According to Brene’ Brown, who has studied emotion and vulnerability for 15 years, we fear the emotion of grief the most. I agree.

As humans, we tend to run from what we fear. So if we fear the emotion of grief, then it makes good sense to say we will likely run from feeling and experiencing it in our lives to the best of our ability.

Why do we fear grief so much? As I asked myself this question, I realized I believed lies about grief and grieving.

Here are some lies I have either believed myself or have heard from others –

~”If I let myself feel sadness or pain, it will only make it worse.”
~”If I let myself acknowledge my grief, I will never be able to function again. It will engulf me.”
~”I don’t have time to be sad.”
~”I need to think positively and not dwell on the bad (on the pain).”
~”The pain from my grief will be so painful, I will not sustain under it.”
~”If I let myself grieve, I am just having a pity party for myself.”
~”Grief only comes when someone dies, and no one has died, therefore I shouldn’t be in pain.”
~”Something is wrong with me because its been “this much time” and I am still sad about ____.”

There are some deep-rooted misbeliefs exposed in the comments above. The assumptions exposed are that grief is bad, weak, wrong, only “okay” when someone dies, and that it exists on some sort of definable timetable.

I started learning a lot about grief and grieving 5 years ago when the landscape of my life radically changed through my divorce. Wrestling with betrayal, and the loss of our intact family, is something I am still grieving. My days are no longer shadowed by grief, but it still pops up from time to time. Some days it may pop up for a moment, some days it may take up residence for a few hours. It has taken me awhile to learn that I will be “okay” in living a life now sprinkled with grief on a daily basis.

I didn’t start out okay with my grief. For the better part of a year after my life had radically changed, I was angry at the pain of my grief. I tried to numb it, run from it, and mask it into something it wasn’t. I fought it, and I suffered for it.

I had to learn how to not fear grief, but rather how to embrace its presence. I had to learn grief is not containable, it cannot be managed, and it lacks predictability. It can last a moment or remain for the better part of a day. It does not ask for my permission to overshadow a day. I also had to learn that when grief rears its head, it doesn’t mean I am weak.

My journey to no longer fear grief is much like my process of no longer fearing thunderstorms. As a kid, I feared thunderstorms (and if i’m being honest here…my fear lasted into my early adult years). It didn’t matter if a storm came in the day or night. To me, the loud bangs of thunder and sudden flashes of light freaked me out! Now as I sit with my youngest son during a storm to calm his fears, I wonder, “What was I so afraid of? It’s just a thunderstorm!” I believed unfounded lies about storms: “something bad is going to happen,” “what if it never stops,” “I am not okay and I won’t be okay until the storm goes away…” and on and on my thoughts would go. Do you see the similarity between storms and grief? With both, I feared what I didn’t understand.

Allowing ourselves to feel grief, is as important as allowing ourselves to feel joy. When we try to numb only the emotions we dislike, we set in motion the beginnings of living an emotionally handicap life. Over time, we will not only numb the emotions we don’t like, but the emotions we like become numb as well.

Life Lessons My Newborn Has Been Teaching Me

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Life Lessons My Newborn Has Been Teaching Me

by: Melinda Seley, PLPC

Sometimes life’s greatest teachers come in the smallest of packages. After recently returning from maternity leave, I have been reflecting on some life lessons my newborn has been teaching (or re-teaching) me over the past several months. Below are the top five:

Silence the “always” and “nevers” and work to be present here and now.

Caring for our newborn is one of the most demanding “jobs” I have ever had – it’s physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting. In those first weeks with our boy, I found myself so afraid that this would be my new normal – being trapped in the house with a tiny little person who could only communicate via hangry crying and who needed something from me for what seemed like every minute. I would never get to have friends again, enjoy a cup of hot coffee, attend church, or do anything beyond being at my boy’s beckon call. This is always how it was going to be. I found myself saying a lot of “always” and “never’s”. And the only place they led me was to despair and fear. They made me miss the joy and uniqueness of that finite season and a season I had so longed to experience.

Do you find yourself saying a lot of always and nevers about where you are in life? If so, what would it look like to, instead, be present in this moment, right now? To be honest about and grieve the unique challenges, losses, and hardships you are experiencing, but to not forget to look for and savor the good. Right here and now.

Some of the most significant growth in life comes through hardship or struggle. Don’t avoid it.

Pediatricians recommend that by 2 months of age, infants spend 30-60 minutes on their tummy. Until he could successfully lift his head, my boy hated “tummy time” and was quite vocal about his dislike of it. It would turn our happy, easy-going baby into a crying mess. I wanted to avoid it; I didn’t want to subject my own son to struggle; and honestly, I didn’t want to subject myself to additional emotional exhaustion from needing to soothe him afterwards. But the only way for him to grow and be able to hold his head steady was for me to allow him to struggle. To give him opportunity each day to face what he didn’t like with support so that he could grow. Is there anything in your life that seems like it would be easier to avoid but really what you need most is to get down on the mat and spend time learning to lift your head – through the tears and grumbles? What are you missing out on because it’s easier or more appealing to avoid the struggle?

Value “being” rather than “doing”.

I am a “doer”. I like lists and I especially like to check them off. Life with a newborn doesn’t allow for many lists other than feed, change diaper, soothe, repeat (with the occasional change clothes and spray with stain remover mixed in!). In the first days of being home all day alone with my son, I texted my husband, “I’ve showered and done a load of laundry…today is already a success!” And in doing so, I realized that my definition of success was based merely on how much of my “to do” list I could accomplish…instead of savoring just being with my new, precious child who relied on me for everything and who I had longed to have. Do you struggle as I do to find your identity in what you do rather than just being? What would it look like to keep the to do list, but give it a whole lot less weight in determining your worth? You are not what you do. You are not the boxes you check off. You are you and that is enough.

The first time will be the hardest…the important thing is to lean into the fear and do it.

After 3 weeks with our little guy, I felt like maybe I finally had the hang of this whole parenting a newborn thing. But I still had not left the house with him alone. I was afraid – what if something happens when we’re out and I don’t have what I need or worse yet – I look like I have no idea what I’m doing as a mom?! My fear kept me stuck in the house and unable to move forward. And then I read somewhere an encouragement to do something I feared as a new mom each day. And suddenly I felt a resolve within me that I would not let fear rule me. I had to name the fear and walk through it. After leaving the house for the first time and realizing that I could survive it (and more importantly, our little one could survive it!), it got easier. I had concrete experience to learn from. What is fear keeping you from doing? What do you need in order to move through that fear and do something for the first time?

Stop comparing.

Being a first time parent is hard. There are so many unknowns, big adjustments, differing opinions on how you should care for your little one, exhaustion, and fear. Every parent is different and every child is different. I found myself looking around me at friends who are on their second, third, fourth child and thinking, “They are handling life so much better and they have more than one child! I can’t even manage {fill in the blank} and I only have one kiddo!” So much shame. And insufficiency. And failure. But my comparing isn’t fair. Those friends of mine have walked through the challenge of adding their first child to their family and they had to do and experience all these things for the first time, too. And they questioned themselves, felt unsure, and were overwhelmed just as I have been. And they learned along the way how to do it. Comparing myself to others in different seasons or places in life discounts their journey to get where they are and the journey I have not yet walked. And experience is one of life’s greatest teachers. When I stopped looking around to compare and gave myself grace to navigate this completely new role with my unique child and my unique strengths and weaknesses, I found so much more joy in the process. Do you find yourself making endless comparisons? Are they fair? What would it look like to acknowledge that you have unique strengths and weaknesses and experience is a great teacher? Would that make a difference in your joy?

Do you need to learn (or apply) any of these life lessons along with me? What are you learning where you are on this journey of life?

Why are some relationships just harder?

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Why are some relationships just harder?

by: Andy Gear, LPC, EMDR trained therapist

I’ve recently seen some articles asserting that ‘if people just communicated and committed to their relationship, then their problems would go away.’ While communication and commitment are very important, I think this overlooks the many people who are committed and communicating but still struggle.

In fact, I find that many people that come in for couples counseling are deeply committed and are communicating very clearly. Then why are these relationships still difficult?

We have outside stressors

Many of the sources of relationship difficulty have nothing to do with the effort invested in the relationship. In fact, studies show that some of the biggest predictors of relationship difficulty are largely outside of the couple’s control:

Poor health
Infertility
Miscarriage after 20 weeks
Low income
Multiple children with ADHD
Partner with mental health issues
Death of a child

If your friend seems to have an easier relationship than you, it may have more to do with your different stressors than it does with different effort. Actually, I find that most couples that come to counseling have been working tirelessly on their relationship. If they weren’t trying, they wouldn’t be coming to counseling. But with major or persistent stressors, communication can become a minefield. And it’s not always as easy as learning a few communication skills.

I am overjoyed when I see people who have easier relationships. But there is something uniquely encouraging about a couple that is still trying after years of difficulty. It takes a special type of courage and commitment to seek the help you need to better love your partner, even when it’s hard.

Our families are different

The families we’re born into also impact the ease or difficulty of our relationships. For better or worse, parents model what relationships are like, and some people have better models than others. We can choose to act differently than our parents, but in stressful times we tend to fall back into the patterns we saw modeled (or against the pattern, in an equally harmful overcorrection).

Parents teach us what love is, how to show it, and how to receive it. They also teach us how to view ourselves. If our parents were neglectful or abusive, they gave us a distorted picture of our self. Without working through these issues, this lack of self-worth will lead us to look for that worth in our partner—creating challenging and often volatile relationships.

This requires more than a simple resolution to change. It takes awareness of how our families impacted our view of the world, relationship, and our self. Since our families tend to be our normal, we often need an outside perspective to help us heal from this impact. This doesn’t mean that you are too weak to handle it alone; it means that you are strong enough to pursue what is necessary to change it.

We get stuck in a cycle

Couples often get stuck in patterns of relating that rob them of their joy in connecting. These cycles have nothing to do with their effort, compatibility, or how much they love each other. In fact, the fear of losing the other is often what escalates the conflict.

The most common negative cycle is the pursue/distance (or attack/withdraw) pattern. People usually aren’t even aware that they are in this cycle. Most often, each partner simply sees the other as being unnecessarily critical or distant. It is hard for people stuck in this pattern to see the bigger picture.

Beneath this cycle, both partners truly value their connection, but they seek to preserve it in different ways: the pursuer by attacking (to get through to them) and the distancer by withdrawing (to avoid conflict). Their mutual attempts to save the relationship (seen as criticism or lack of care by the other), only escalate the problem as each person doubles down on their ‘go-to’ strategy for preserving the relationship.

In these cases, demands for more communication will only push the withdrawer deeper into his bunker. Instead, we need help gaining awareness of our own role in the harmful cycle, so that we can interrupt it and develop a healthier pattern of relating.

Everybody’s relationship is different

It isn’t useful to compare our relationships to others, because everyone’s history and circumstances are different. Learning a few communication skills may be very helpful for someone whose relationship has had few stressors, had model parents, and hasn’t been stuck in a cycle.

For others, there will be too much anxiety and conflict in the relationship for communication skills to be the answer. This doesn’t mean that your relationship is doomed, that you don’t love each other, or that you aren’t compatible. Relationships are messy, and life often leaves us in places where we need help sorting out the pieces. In my opinion, one of the surest signs that someone loves and is committed to their partner is that they are willing to seek help during the hard times.

The Pinterest Beast

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The Pinterest Beast

by: Courtney Hollingsworth, LPC, EMDR Trained Therapist

I love Pinterest. I used to bookmark tons of web pages, have draft emails full of links for easy access. Thanks to Pinterest, I can keep all that information handy in one place and organized! And I can search for resources of all kinds in one place. It’s an awesome tool.

However, this wonderful tool also comes with a sneaky and nasty beast. You may have noticed him or heard him while scrolling through pins. He may be so sneaky with you that you haven’t noticed him lurking between homemade play dough recipes and decorating ideas that cost a year’s salary. He has many names: Comparison, Envy, Self-Doubt, Esteem crusher, Mommy Guilt, and many more. He whispers in your ear in first person: “Why can’t I do that?”, “I’m so lazy,” “My house should look like that,” “If I were a better mom, I would _______,” “I need more,” “I need less,” “I’m not enough,” and variations of “If my kid doesn’t know all his colors, numbers, shapes, alphabet, and multiplication tables before entering preschool, he will grow up to be a high school drop-out and become homeless.”

The Pinterest Beast isn’t alone, it has a variety of friends on other websites and apps telling us about how our lives, ourselves, are not enough. Social media has given us a great way to stay connected in our fast-paced and transient lives. It has also given us a chance to edit what is seen as I talked about in a previous blog here. And when we see the edited 5% of the lives of others, we tend to use it to judge 100% of our lives.

What if we lived our lives according to our own view of it? What would that look like? What if Pinterest was just a place to keep and find good ideas, and reject the ones that just are realistic or even good for our lives. Six months of freezer meals may be great for someone else and the idea is good, but it just doesn’t fit well in my life. Floor to ceiling bookshelves built-in around a door looks awesome in the picture, but my skills and my budget make it totally unrealistic. There is no judgement call on who I am. Be the you you want to be in real life, not the one your screen lures you into thinking you “should” be.

Say Goodbye to Life-Sucking Fears

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by: Lianne Johnson, LPC

Learning to acknowledge the fears we have within ourselves and with others is the first step to becoming free from them.

Perhaps Franklin D. Roosevelt was onto something when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Having a fear of something isn’t bad. In fact, sometimes our responses to fear can save our lives. We sense danger, so we run. We are swimming and running out of breath, so we get to shore. Fear itself isn’t the problem. It is what becomes of our fear that matters. Once our fears begin to control us – limit our life, change our thoughts/beliefs about ourselves, irrational behavior surfaces – this is when a fear becomes problematic.

A fear not dealt with has the potential to overcome us to the point of robbing our joy in life.

Anything can become a fear. Nothing is too far from its reach.

Oftentimes I find people hating what they fear yet, unwilling to change. I can’t say that I blame them. After all, even though they hate what they fear and want so badly for it to change, it is also known to them. Theoretically, they have already lived with their fear for a number of years, and have become accustomed to how it limits their life and restricts their happiness. Asking someone to take the risk learning to let go of their fear, is one of the scariest risks I ask of people to try in my job. Asking people to give up the known for the unknown requires much trust, courage, and vulnerability on their part. Asking them to believe change is possible is the first step.

What are you fearing?

-Not being good enough?

-Letting people down?

-Being abandoned or rejected by those you love?

-Being a bad parent?

-Not having enough money to pay your bills?

-Not being liked?

-Loosing your spouse?

-Never being happy?

-Something bad that happened in your past?

-(insert your fear here….)

Are your fears limiting your life? Are they altering your beliefs about yourself? Are they causing you to act in ways you normally wouldn’t?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then seeking help is your next step.

What do we do when ours fears begin altering how we live our lives?

1. Acknowledge your fear is controlling or altering the way your think and live.

2. Seek help. Ask friends for support. Find a trusted counselor to help you.

3. Believe change is possible.

These steps may sound trite, but believe me they are not! These initial steps are hard and require courage and vulnerability. You are choosing to step out into the unknown and say, “I want something better than what I currently have. I want to take back control of my life!” This is no easy task to begin engaging in.

Some of the common fears I see people struggling with actually have nothing to do with something outside of themselves. Usually, I find people most fear something having to do who they are, how they perform and how they perceive the need to measure up to others, or being good enough or perfect enough to be loved. If I just described you, know you are not alone in your struggle. I hope you will reach out for help because freedom from your fears is possible!

We Hate to Feel

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We hate to feel, don’t we? There seems to be a generalized belief among the living that to feel any emotion for too long or too intensely means something is wrong with who we are. Why is this?

We believe we have somehow malfunctioned if we cannot keep our emotions in-check, socially acceptable, and controlled. And we believe that we must…and I mean must maintain homeostasis in how we feel. By any chance does this sound like you?

Why do we hate to feel? Why do we fear our emotions?

Here are some thoughts on why we fear to feel:

We Fear we will loose our controlled composure – Any emotions we experience intensely can cause us to feel out of control. It doesn’t mean we are out of control, but this is how we feel. Mentally we want to stop crying or feeling sad, but no matter how hard we will ourselves to stop these unwelcomed emotions they do not go away. They must run their course. And simply put – this feels uncomfortable to us.

We Fear social isolation – “What if I’m too much for my family and friends and they all walk away from me?” It is such a horrible thought to have of oneself as “being too much” for others, isn’t it? This fear alone can grip us so tightly that we choose to stuff down our feelings in an effort to never burden someone again. In all honesty, if someone who claims to love you walks away from your relationship with them because they claim you are too much, then I would question if they truly loved you in the first place.

“What if they think I’m crazy?” – Another aspect to our fear of social isolation is the fear that says something like, “If I let people see my ‘raw’ emotions, or if I am sad too long or cry too much, they are going to think I am crazy.” Basically, we hate to feel because we fear what our feelings say about us to others.

We Fear being consumed – Our fear informs us that if we allow ourselves to feel our feelings, they will consume us. Once consumed, we will no longer be able to function.

Our fears can hold a very powerful role in our lives, but they don’t have to. How can we start to think differently? How can we respond differently to our fears? Next week I will seek to answer these questions. Until then, perhaps just take some time to think about which of the fears listed above ring true in your life. Think about if you are willing to imagine a new way of living. A way of living that doesn’t magically make your fears disappear, but a way of living that isn’t bound by them any longer.

-Lianne Johnson, LPC