At least once a day I tell someone that rumor has it feeling your feelings is good for you. I’ve read probably hundreds of books that assert that fact. I’ve experienced it myself. And yet, actually feeling my feelings is hard. Often it sucks. Sometimes it’s absolutely delightful. Other times it’s boring as all get out.
Now that it’s winter, I am sad everyday. I do not cope well with anything except burning sunlight and extreme heat. Not only is it winter, but wow are there a lot of very bad, very upsetting, horrific things happening in the world and I want those things to stop! Plus there’s personal stuff to deal with; my loved ones are dealing with stuff. The horrors persist, but so do I.
That’s just a long way to say that I’ve got a lot of feelings to feel right now (honestly, I pretty much always do). So it’s a good time to practice feeling some of them. Below is a list of some of the things I’ve learned to help me. Some of these might be helpful for others, and some won’t be. It’s a fun part of life that we are all so different.
Assess my safety
It may not always be the best time to be present with big feelings. I wish we lived in a world where we could count on being safe with feelings whenever and wherever, but I realize we don’t quite have that yet. Everyone’s needs around safety will be different. Some things I ask myself are:
- Do I have time and energy to have this experience right now?
- Am I somewhere that I feel physically safe, especially if I might cry, scream, laugh really loudly, or otherwise express big feelings? (For some reason crying while driving is so much easier, but also, not the greatest idea safety-wise).
- How deep into this feeling can I go? There are some feelings that can be overwhelming for us, or lead to thoughts of suicide.
- Do I have the resources available to either feel this feeling until it passes or to move myself away from the feeling into an easier/simpler feeling?
Pay attention
Next, I try to pay attention. Sometimes my body can be a good guide – my skin is crawling, my eyes are watering (some say crying), my stomach hurts. Some people can tell when their physical symptoms are directly related to emotions. I can’t. It is shocking to me every time that it occurs to me that maybe the pain in my neck is related to stress, or the hangover like feeling is related to anxiety.
In addition to thinking about my body, I check on what my brain is doing. Am I thinking in circles? Am I not thinking anything at all? This helps give me an overview of the situation.
Use words
For someone who has been doing peer advocacy and counseling for over twenty years, I am often terrible at naming feelings! I hear many people get a lot out of feelings wheels – and I hope that’s true! Using a feeling wheel can help you get specific about feelings – you can start with a broad type of feeling (good/bad/happy/sad) and then get more specific from there. Here’s an example.
I find big categories pretty helpful for me. “I am having sads.” “I am cranky.” “I’m happy.” I also find highly specific descriptions that aren’t necessarily feelings words to be helpful – “I’m feeling amped up on adrenaline from endless meetings and like I need to say all the things really urgently!” or “I am completely convinced that it will never be warm again and I hate it.”
It also helps me to remind myself that there are no right or wrong ways to put words to feelings. It’s not even always necessary. Sometimes pictures or colors can express feelings better than words. Or music can be helpful. Maybe you feel like a certain song or note. Some of my feelings are more like images – a giant pit of despair or a beautiful ocean.
It doesn’t have to make sense
Feelings don’t always have clear causes. I used to dismiss feelings that I considered “irrational” – the ones that I didn’t understand. I’m getting a lot better at accepting that I don’t know why I’m sad and that’s okay. Or maybe I’m happy on a day when so many things are terrible, and logically that seems wrong, but I can still take time to be present with that joy.
But sometimes it does make sense
In a stunning display of contradictions – sometimes my feelings do make sense! How rude of them to be so inconsistent. I have found that when I’m in the midst of feeling my feelings, sometimes I can listen to the thoughts in my head (if there are any) and find some reason for the feeling. Maybe it’s a current life circumstance (bad news, adopting kittens, etc.) or maybe it’s a belief I have about myself or others (I suck. No one likes me. Everyone is dangerous and awful). It could be that it’s a little of both (my friend didn’t text me back, so obviously they don’t love me and I don’t deserve to be loved). With support, sometimes I can notice if that thinking pattern isn’t so great for me or maybe isn’t true, and I can change it.
Not all feelings need to change
I also spent some time in my life thinking that the point of feeling a feeling was to GET RID OF IT! I would cry so that I could get over it and move on. I’d rage so that I could be happy. Because I thought the goal was to be happy all the time. Turns out, many people think that the goal of feeling is actually to experience life. And life has all sorts of feelings in it. I have had some really big griefs in my life, and I was scared that one day they would get smaller, and I didn’t want to leave the grief, because I didn’t want to leave those that I lost. I really appreciated this image that shares an idea of growing around a feeling, rather than the feeling getting smaller.
Make it funny
Okay, my final, not very expert idea, is to make jokes. Laughter feels pretty good. Often laughter helps me to access other feelings – maybe that’s true for you too. How many times have we laughed until we cried, or cried so hard we laughed or some other combination? Call my feelings ‘the sads’ or stomping around like a toddler gives me ways to express myself that feel easier to access because they are silly.
Your turn
I’ll probably always be learning how to feel my feelings. The good ones and the difficult ones. What experts tell me is that the more we let ourselves experience the hard/difficult feelings, the more that we can feel the joyful/good feelings. When we cut ourselves off from grief, anger, sadness, fear, etc., we can’t help but keep ourselves from humor, joy, ecstasy, and connection.
Yet we live in a world that hurts a lot of us, through violence, trauma, and transphobia – which can lead to overwhelming feelings that may need extra care and support to experience. We also live in a world, especially in the United States, that doesn’t embrace expressing our feelings all the time. It may not always be safe or welcome for us to feel our feelings. And there are things we might be able to do to access some of them. My list might be a starting place for your own set of tips.
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