Why Feel?

Here’s a question I’ve heard from clients and, admittedly, asked myself at times: “Why would I want to feel THAT?” It’s a legitimate question. When we start working with our parts, buried feelings may start to emerge. Our parts might share feelings with us that weren’t previously in our awareness: anger, disappointment, grief, bewilderment, terror.

Yikes! Sure, we’ve heard “The unexamined life is not worth living,” but Socrates was sentenced to death right after he said that, right? Are we really better off letting those emotions arise?

I say, yes. Unequivocally, yes. And at the same time, I have parts who resist those feelings with all their might, so this post is as much as them as for my readers. There is a reason, though, that despite my resistance, I’ll argue that feeling buried emotions is worth the risk, worth the effort, worth the energy.

First, and in my book, this is reason enough all on its own: our parts deserve to be heard. It can help to think of our parts as children in a classroom or in a family. Would it feel acceptable to only hear from one child all the time — the child who is cheerful or smart or who tries really hard? If there’s a child crying in the corner and the teacher or parent consistently ignores him/her/them, we’d consider that neglect. When we start holding ourselves to the same standard with our parts, we’re starting to get the idea. We get used to only allowing “acceptable” thoughts, feelings, and actions through our filters, and we learn to pretend the sadness, anger, fear, and needs don’t exist. But they do. They exist and they are not going away. Attending to them is respectful and (dare I say?) a moral imperative.

Okay, sermon over.

The next reason we want to allow ourselves to feel? This is a more utilitarian reason. Because it frees up other emotions. When we don’t allow our feelings to flow, we can get stuck in a limited range of emotion. Damming a river can leave only a trickle to flow downstream. Preventing anger from arising limits confidence. Preventing sadness from arising limits intimacy. Preventing fear from arising limits vulnerability. And limiting any of these emotions prevents us from connecting to others as fully as we might otherwise. Just as a regular yoga practice keeps our bodies flexible enough to respond with physical prowess to a rock climbing challenge, letting our emotions flow trains us in emotional responsiveness. Physical flexibility is the result of stretching a variety of muscles, not just lifting weights. Emotional flexibility requires experience with all our feelings, not just the ones we receive approval for. And emotional flexibility helps us connect with other people, feeling compassion, curiosity, playfulness, and confidence.

We may not realize how guarded we become when we shut down our feelings. If we’re not allowed to feel anger, then we start avoiding discussions on issues that might trigger passionate responses. We’ll also avoid people who are angry (or we’ll shame them). If sadness is not on the list, we’re probably not going to call that friend who just had a miscarriage, even if she could really use someone to talk to. And if fear is off the acceptability list, no more risk-taking for us, right? So our world becomes more limited. We miss out on experiences that could be deeply enriching.

I’m not saying that learning to feel our anger, fear, and sadness is a walk in the park, just that it’s surprisingly freeing. We may think that feeling uncomfortable feelings will be terrible, and it can feel that way at first, but once we do it, we see that it’s really not so bad; it’s just a feeling. Feelings arise and diminish, arise and diminish, just like ocean waves, if they’re allowed to. They become problematic only when they get stuck. Feeling them all the way through lets them dissipate.

For the most part, we weren’t taught this as children, because those teaching us were not comfortable with their own emotions and so didn’t know how to deal with ours. But that’s okay. We can learn now. We can give our parts the respect they deserve by honoring their feelings and providing a safe container for their healing.

“Why feel THAT?” Because it’s part of the authentic you, and that’s who you really want to be, after all.