Feelings About Feelings

“Having feelings about our feelings creates unnecessary suffering.” Debra Benfield 

A while back there was a Very Important Day. It was one I had anticipated for the longest of times.

One that I had looked forward to with eagerness and joy.

And yet when it came to be it was one of the most intense days of my life. 

So many things, some very good and some very hard, led up to thatVery Important Day and I was a jumble of emotions. I felt them all,

sometimes in sequence and sometimes concurrently. At a point or two

I was in tears. Tears of happiness and relief. But also tears of just all the

intense emotions: excitement, fear, heartbreak, uncertainty, gratefulness,

grief, and pure exhaustion. In addition, there were the yucky feelings of

incompetence and invisibility and worthlessness. 

But on top of all of that was this overriding feeling of shame. I felt that

I SHOULD have felt differently. It was the should that almost did me in. 

I closed the Very Important Day beating myself up, believing myself to

be the most dysfunctional of humans…all because of the emotions I had

that day. Emotions that surprised me. Emotions that did not fit inside the

Very Important Day box. Emotions that I could not control and bend to

my will. 

When I talked with my therapist, not only did she validate all of those

emotions, but she asked me what I had done to show myself compassion. 

Show what???

Showing myself compassion was definitely not on my self-care bingo card that day. 

It wasn’t until I read the above quote that it really clicked with what I know but often…usually….well, almost always forget. That emotions are morally neutral. They aren’t right or wrong, they just are. 

We can be curious about them and learn from them. We can ride them out. We can learn ways to manage them. But we can’t change them. And we can’t, we mustn’t, condemn them. That only leads to suffering.

But on top of all of that was this overriding feeling: shame. I SHOULD have felt differently. I closed the biggest day of my daughter’s life beating myself up for being the most dysfunctional mother on the planet because of the emotions I had that day. Emotions I could not control and bend to my will. When I talked with Heidi, my therapist, not only did she validate all of those emotions, but she asked me what I had done to show myself compassion. Showing myself compassion was definitely not on my bingo card that day. It wasn’t until I read the above quote that it really clicked with what I know but often…usually….well, almost always forget. That emotions are morally neutral. They aren’t right or wrong, they just are. We can be curious about them and learn from them. We can ride them out. We can learn ways to manage them. But we can’t change them. And we can’t, we mustn’t, condemn them. It does only lead to suffering.