Feelings near and far
People can suffer with their emotions for two reasons. They feel too much or they feel too little.
If they feel too much they are overwhelmed by the energy of their feelings and ruminate.
Another way of thinking of this is with the metaphoric language of distance.
For some people their feelings are so close that they can not see anything else and their emotions take over everything and it feels hopeless because it seems permanent.
For others, their feelings are too far away therefore they feel alienated from themselves and can’t access the good and useful in listening to and integrating their emotions. Off in the distance, they feel lost and depressed because they have learned to suppress or ignore their emotions. They wish to grasp at them because they sense that something of their authentic selves resides there but don’t know how to listen or hold them in a way where the feelings move closer. Perhaps they are ambivalent about whether it would be a good idea to allow the emotions to approach.
Be with the unknown
I have a worry about teaching people to quickly language and label their emotions. “Name it to tame it” says well known psychiatrist Dan Seigal. I think part of our problem is our over reliance on thought. Labelling feelings and therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy work from a premise that thoughts are the primary vehicle for coping with difficult feelings. Some clients then struggle with CBT concepts because there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to think after all. The emphasis on thoughts does not help clients learn to let go of thinking and to free themselves from rumination.
Rather than immediately engaging in thinking, distress tolerance or the ability to be with the unknown and chaos is a foundational aspect of psychological resilience. The purpose of emotions is to help orient us to situations, people, problems where our knowledge base, problem solving, has reached its limitations. This is uncomfortable and reacting too quickly to dispel or distract away from the discomfort can lead to lost learning.
I would prefer if we taught people to be accepting of all emotions and to remain within their bodies and to learn to tolerate the discomfort of their emotions. This is why techniques like mindfulness meditation, yoga, ACT therapy are useful because they teach a way of being with experience that isn’t about layering on more thinking, but shifting the perspective from which we are experiencing life. This shift in stance or attitude can result in a shift in the feelings.
Now, I make a distinction between emotions and feelings. Emotions are a primary vital energy. They are connected to deep human universal needs like love, connection, creativity, meaning, survival. They fuel us and make up the juice of life. Feelings on the other hand are the by-product of this primal emotional energy that has gone through the filter of thoughts.
Here is an example;
Primary emotion: sadness, loneliness (need:yearning for connection)
event/sensory input: My neighbor who usually chats with me makes eye contact with me and rushes in their house
Thought: They are mad at me. I did something wrong. They don’t like me anymore.
Feeling: Hurt, Rejected, Worried, anger.
What is your belief or attitude towards feelings? Do you believe that there are good and bad emotions? That some are just better avoided or denied? Or that feelings have an important role to play and are a manifestation of life force and provide important information for our living? Our beliefs form the basis of our relationship to emotions. If we believe emotions to be harmful and they should be avoided because the pain is intolerable, we will use negative coping like addictions, toxic relationships and negative rumination.
However, if we can work from a foundational belief that all emotions are good even the bad ones. This opens up new possibilities that keep us in connection with our living process of which emotions are a primary fuel since they provide the drive towards survival, growth and fulfillment. There are no emotions/feelings that I don’t want to be acquainted and eventually friends with. There may be times when I don’t have the energy to look or I need to distract myself, but I make a promise to spend time with whatever energy, emotion, or feeling that is coming up as soon as I am able or have the support of others I need. Listening and paying attention to my self in this way honors the life force moving within me in whatever form or sensation it happens to take at a moment in time. Rather than relying on a defensive coping stance of projecting, denying or ignoring, my wish is to embrace the need which is the seed within the challenging emotion.
Taking an open, compassionate and curious stance with the feeling can help us be present to the difficult feelings. What is here? Whatever is here is acceptable even if it feels bad or can be scary. Whatever comes from a human is human and worth looking at with human dignity and respect even if it is difficult.
It has been my personal and professional experience that the belief that ‘all feelings are good” has proven to be true. Perhaps in your family context, you learned, as I did, from a young age that certain emotions, especially the so-called bad ones, are to be suppressed and denied. Unfortunately, if you haven’t had the consistent experience that being with difficult emotions can be healthy and constructive this is only a vague hypothesis that promises a lot but only after taking a scary and painful risk of facing the darkness.
This is why the first step is often to create and find the spaces of safety, nurturance and connection. In order to move through the change process and to be present to the emotion that is stuck, we need a lot of support. Finding people that have the ability and patience to sit with us without judgment and with an active but calm compassion can help encourage us to move through our experience and transform feelings into new resources and perspectives.
Being with a good friend in this way, gives us clues of how we can be related to our experience.
“The problem isn’t the problem. The problem is the coping with the problem” -Virginia Satir
Another way of putting this is: the problem isn’t the feelings, but what we believe about and do with our feelings that is the real problem.