Stop fearing your feelings

Emotions are an important part of being a human. And the only way to experience emotions is to feel them. 

Emotions drive 99% of our decisions and actions.

Yet because we have been so conditioned to place importance on mental intellect, we have learnt to not truly feel, or even be aware of, what feelings are showing up from moment to moment. 

When I share this with my female clients before they start working with me, it feels like such a cumbersome task. They often ask me: “How will I live a normal life then?” “How will I even find time to stop and feel?” “Will I become weird and melodramatic?”

That is the sad world we have been conditioned to live in as women. 

Feeling is the most natural human thing. Yet nowadays many of us would rather find bandaids to suppress or repress what is happening in our human bodies, than have to feel.  We try to feel better about ourselves by doing more.

This means that we are cutting off so much of our power source as women. 

Also the fact is that we are truly scared of our feelings. 

Of being alone with our feelings.

It overwhelms us.

It creates panic.

It brings shame.

The fear of feeling what we are feeling is bigger than the feeling itself. 

So we do anything and everything to run away from these full body sensations that occur when we are facing feelings as part of being human.

That is one of the biggest fears for humans at subconscious level.

People will never admit it as there are so many band aid solutions for every ailment possible. From chronic fatigue to relationship issues to job issues to how to feel confident.

And this fear is also one of the reasons why it is hard to sit still. 

Stillness will bring unrest in the system and all of the unprocessed stuff, especially feelings and sensations, will arise if we've never actually looked at our inner world before. 

Recently I was listening to a podcast, where it was shared that highly successful individuals would prefer an electric shock rather than having to be alone with themselves for 10 minutes without any gadgets or things to do. 

As an ambitious woman, your power lies in your ability to feel emotions and be able to deal with things as they arise. 

The world we live in where many women are questioning how to be a better leader and if it is possible to still have the needs of being a woman met, means we need to see the power that comes from honouring and processing feelings. 

SO WHY ARE WE SO SCARED OF OUR EMOTIONS?

As humans we are naturally driven towards pleasurable feelings rather than pain, unless we learn to not make feelings and emotions good or bad. 

This means that everyone wants to feel positive, joy and happiness all of the time.

As women, when we stepped into the working world - to fit in with our male colleagues - over a period of time we had to learn to push most of our feelings to the side.

By pushing the feelings, we also pushed away our life force energy, which is where our power comes from.

This led to being on a hedonic treadmill, meaning we’re always seeking the next thing that will bring pleasure. And running away from anything that creates discomfort in the body.

Even when the environment around might be creating discomfort in the body, such as a stressful situation at work, the tendency is to avoid pain. So most people will do anything to not feel the discomfort that is happening because of the stress. They might complain / blame / shame yet the true feelings have been suppressed by using band aid solutions. 

The issue with this is that emotions are on a spectrum. So if one side is the most unpleasant emotion like fear - the other side would be joy. The potential for the amount  of true Joy one can feel is dependent upon the amount of fear one is able to process in their system.

And those unprocessed emotions in the body create havoc. 

Most of the health issues, relationship issues, communication breakdowns, sabotaging of self, power games, burnout, your true expression etc. All of these have an element where the unprocessed emotions have collected over the years and are making you behave in a way that is not healthy for you and also toxic for your body.  

WHY ARE WE NOT ABLE TO FEEL EMOTIONS?

The culture you were born in, the society you live in, the childhood you had, your parents’ comfort with their own emotions, and the beliefs you have collected over your lifetime will impact your relationship with your emotions.

This relationship will be unique to you. How fear shows up in your body and how you respond to it is very unique to you. The same is true for other emotions like anger, guilt, and shame. 

There can be multiple reasons why you don’t want to feel your emotions, including: 

• It could be that you did not learn how to regulate your emotions on your own from childhood. In simpler terms, you did not learn how to distinguish what you were feeling, how to feel them, how to process them etc. 
• It could be that you have had some adverse life experiences due to which suppressing the pain feels easier than bringing it to the top.
• It could be that there is not enough of a container in your body to be able to hold big sensations. 

But all of this can change with the right support. 

WHAT ARE DARK EMOTIONS AND WHAT IMPACT DO THEY HAVE ON US? 

I don’t look at emotions as good or bad as I know that we need all aspects of our human system to thrive in life. So I sometimes like to classify emotions as light or dark.

Light would be anything that you want to feel like being positive, joyful, grateful etc. Dark would be anything that you run away from, because that's what you might have been taught.

Because we are not taught to be ok with “dark emotions” like anger, fear, shame, guilt, anxiety, depression ... .we can remain entangled in them and they can unconsciously drive all of our decisions and actions. 

We can unconsciously judge ourselves and judge others for these emotions, yet the truth is that most of us feel helpless when these emotions show up.

We either suppress, repress, express or try to escape our dark emotions. Then we feel more shame for feeling so guided by our emotions.

This is a never-ending cycle until self-awareness is brought into it.

The relationship you have with your dark emotions will unconsciously drive everything about you - your life, your relationship to others, your health, your work and your self-expression.

Someone who is able to feel their dark emotions and hold these emotions in their bodies will see the benefits of healing their health, changing their relationships with others and be able to express themselves fully in their work and life. This is the true freedom that most of us are unconsciously chasing.

So learn to distinguish what you are feeling at your body level. What sensations show up as which emotions? And learn how to process and move these emotions so you can get wisdom from them and then take action accordingly.

Since most of us are living in a numbed state, working with a practitioner in the beginning can be life changing to create a new relationship with your emotions. 

One pillar of my work - whole-self and embodied leadership, is mastering the emotional intelligence skill and the ability to be aware of your environment while being aware of yourself and then acting from choice vs conditioned response of fear, anger, shame, anxiety, guilt etc.

Are you aware of how much of what you are doing is not from choice at all?

If you are curious to learn to navigate your emotions and feel your true power, get in touch...