Feeling feelings - where do you avoid it?

Feeling feelings - a central topic in the psychological counseling setting. In today's article, I would like to explain what it means to feel feelings, the benefits of feeling feelings and how exactly it brings you closer to a fulfilled, happy life.

Have you ever tried to push an inflated ball under water, e.g. in a pool? And keep it down there? I'm sure you can vividly imagine that this is no easy task. And at some point, the ball will slip out of your grasp and bounce out of the water uncontrollably. This is a nice metaphor for what happens when you try to suppress your feelings - they eventually make their way to the surface uncontrollably, and by then it has taken a lot of strength to suppress them. This is not the case when you can feel your feelings.

Feeling feelings - what it means and what it doesn't mean

Feeling feelings means making space for your feelings inside yourself when they arise and allowing them to be there. Feeling and experiencing the sensations in your body. It means not wanting to prevent the experience of your feelings, not ignoring or suppressing them. Because these feelings usually have important messages for you. It doesn't mean accepting unpleasant feelings without looking at whether something can be done about your initial situation. It also doesn't mean acting out your feelings, for example behaving aggressively because you feel angry.

How feeling feelings can enrich your life

1. Feelings contain messages

Our emotions and feelings are largely generated by sensory input that reach the brain from muscles and organs in the body. Feelings are therefore directly linked to your needs. Our feelings can also provide information about who or what is important to you. Or what you could change in your life. The stronger the feelings, the more important the thing they are linked to. Looking away from them prevents you from recognizing and fulfilling your needs, actively shaping your life and making smart decisions.

For example, if you prefer to distract yourself with a lot of work instead of looking at certain feelings and their triggers, it will be more difficult to correctly categorise the negative consequences of an important unfulfilled need such as increasing dissatisfaction. Feeling feelings is therefore the way to actively shape your own life. Sometimes your feelings don't contain anything that can be turned into action. Then it is helpful to show yourself compassion, just as you would show a beloved friend.

2. Joy and pleasure

Wenn wir uns von unseren Gefühlen und körperlichen Eindrücken abwenden, hilft uns das, schmerzhafte Gefühle zu vermeiden, schneidet uns aber auch von angenehmen Emotionen und Gefühlen ab.
When you learn to reconnect with your body and feelings, you gain access to all of life's emotions - both painful and pleasant. This allows you to experience pleasure and joy as well as pain.

3. Vitality

As you learn to (re)connect with your body and feel your emotions, you will likely experience a sense of vitality, aliveness and resurgence.

4. Self-control

The less aware you are of your emotions, the less self-control you have. So you have less control over your actions, over what you say and do and how you react. Why is that? Because you are not aware of your feelings and emotions and they control you unconsciously, a bit like a marionette being controlled by a puppeteer.

5. Success

There is a direct correlation between success in life and emotional intelligence. If we want to be more successful in almost all areas of life - as parents or partners, at work or at play - then the higher our emotional intelligence, the more likely we are to succeed.
Emotional intelligence means being aware of your emotions, recognizing how they influence your own behavior and learning how to deal with them more effectively.
But if you are cut off from your body and your feelings, it makes it almost impossible to improve your emotional intelligence. And if you can't improve your emotional intelligence, your success in life will be impaired.

6. Avoiding feelings often has negative long-term consequences

Avoiding feelings often manifests itself in behaviors that take you further away from the life you actually want to lead. Many mental disorders can be cited as examples here: Anxiety disorders, for example - here clients do not want to feel the emotion of anxiety, and so avoid all situations that could trigger anxiety. This often significantly impairs their quality of life.

But there are also examples that even more people experience themselves: e.g. a feeling of unwillingness to do that round of sport that would do you good, or the upcoming tax return. Here it is important to first recognize the feeling, name it and make space for it so that you can then do what is important to you and bring you closer to the life you want.

7. Negative judgments about feelings increase the emotional chaos

Another point is the way you relate to your feelings. These are so-called meta-emotions, the attitudes you have towards your feelings. These can become problematic if you evaluate certain feelings as a problem. This leads to you having negative feelings about your emotions, which makes them bigger and therefore take up more space in your life than is actually necessary. This aspect is explained well in this video:

It has also been shown that couple relationships are more strained when partners have different meta-emotions. For example, if it is okay for one partner to be angry and verbalize this, but the other perceives this as inappropriate.

A full life also includes unpleasant feelings

If you make space for your feelings inside you, you don't have to engage in (avoidance) behaviour that moves you awayfrom the life you want.

„The only way out is through“

Many things that make our lives full and worth living are unpleasant at first (or every now and then): the feeling of fear of getting involved with someone, even though that is exactly what you want. Writing an application for a position you think would be great, but feeling insecure about your own competence, even though this job would be your dream job. The fear of failing (and the sadness for when you fail repeatedly) when learning a new skill you would like to master. The awkward first contact with a psychologist, even though you know you might need to tackle some things in your life with help.

All of this requires you to feel uncomfortable, insecure, anxious or vulnerable. But only through these feelings can you show behaviors that bring you closer to the life you want. Sometimes it takes working with a psychologist to help you get in touch with your own feelings and allow certain emotions. I would be happy to provide you with professional support here, please write me a message.

Is there one thing in your life that you should be doing but keep putting off? Feel free to comment on this post or share it with me in an Email.