Feelings are information and listening to them is essential for personal and spiritual
growth. Every feeling has a unique meaning attached to it. Feelings educate us. They
are the royal road to self-discovery and self-development. To ignore, dismiss, or avoid
what we feel is like choosing not to open an email that’s marked “Urgent—open
immediately!” Our feelings teach us what is good and what is not good about ourselves
and our lives. They are our quality control monitors.
Uncomfortable feelings such as sadness, anxiety, shame, loneliness, anger, and jealousy
serve the same function as physical pain. Just like physical pain informs us that
something is wrong and needs to be attended to, so too emotional pain. Ignoring a
stomach pain, might result in having a ruptured appendix. Sadness that is ignored and
not explored could result in depression. As a psychotherapist, I have found that all too
often at the core of people’s problems is some degree of disconnect from their feelings
and an inability to process their feelings effectively.
Listening to our feelings doesn’t mean following them impulsively or blindly. To learn
from our feelings, we need to process them. There are three steps to processing our
feelings:
- Identify what I am feeling by naming the feeling, for example, sad, mad, glad, fear,
shame etc. - Clarify why I am experiencing this particular feeling, at this particular moment and in
this particular context. - Decide what I want to do about this feeling now that I understand the meaning of it.
I realize something is bothering about something my wife said to me. I identify that I’m
feeling sad. The reason I’m feeling sad is that within the context of the situation, this
sadness means that she doesn’t understand something important about who I am. I feel
distant from her. I decide that I need to have a conversation about how I feel and see if I
can help her understand me better so we can reconnect.
Understandably, there are some who distrust human emotions. After all, giving into
ones feelings blindly or impulsively “doing what feels good” can certainly lead to
disastrous results. From this perspective, it is understandable why some believe it is best
to try to get rid of bad feelings while opting to rely on reason and logic.
Nobody wants to be in pain. Patients come in with an expectation that my job is to help
them get rid of their pain. Instead, I tell them my job is to help them understand the
meaning of their pain, which will help them to tolerate and ultimately integrate it.
The desire for comfort is king in our culture. The drug industry is a multi-billion dollar
business because so many people want to get rid of their uncomfortable feelings. (This is
not to say, that there are certainly good and appropriate uses for such medications.)
When we try to get rid of them we lose precious opportunities for self-discovery and
growth. Rather than taking an adversarial stance vis-a-vis our feelings, we need to take a
friendly and curious stance. We shouldn’t be afraid of our feelings.
So don’t run away from your feelings. Listen to them, process them, and use them as an
opportunity for self-discovery and growth.