We Don’t Need Saving from Hard Feelings

Jenn Rapkin, ND

 

I’d rather feel silly, excited or glad,

Than cranky or grumpy, discouraged or sad.

But moods are just something that happen each day,

Whatever I’m feeling inside is okay!

–Jamie Lee Curtis, Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods that Make My Day

 

We intuitively know that it is important for children to express their feelings and to trust that what they are feeling inside is okay, normal, and valid. Yet we don’t always extend ourselves the same courtesy or compassion. When was the last time you cheered yourself on (or even acknowledged for that matter) as you sat with and outlasted a hard feeling? 

 

We judge our anger, insecurity, and sadness, while we celebrate our joy, satisfaction, and gratitude. We push away our fear and loneliness, while we search high and low for happiness and love.

 

As a mom, I am keenly aware of allowing my kids to have and express their feelings. And yet I catch myself saying things to my teenagers like, “Why are you getting so upset? In the scheme of things, this will not be a big deal.” While I may believe, in that moment, that those words are helpful, they are not; what I am trying to do is ease or rather erase their discomfort – for their sake and for mine too.

 

Firstly, their struggles are, in fact, a very big deal to them. As a mom, it is my job to support my kids through their struggles – not to minimize them – and to let them know that they can handle adversity and challenge. And in doing so, if my kids see that they can sit with and outlast some very tough and maybe at times excruciating feelings, then even better. 

 

As parents, our attempts to solve and fix our children’s problems – our swooping in and trying to rescue them from their challenges – is neither constructive nor beneficial; it gives them the message that they need to rely on us and that they can’t get through hard stuff on their own. Letting our kids struggle is not easy and can feel counterintuitive at first, but our supportive words and actions (as opposed to minimizing or rescuing) can communicate that we know and trust that they can persevere with resilience and independence.

 

Moreover, it is helpful when we can be aware that the hard feelings of our children (or of others in our lives) trigger us. I am the first one to admit that I feel my kids’ hurdles and hardships in my gut; I want things to be easy for them and for them to be healthy, happy, and successful. My heart breaks when they are struggling. Yet if I can’t tolerate my own discomfort around their hard feelings, how can I expect them to manage theirs? If we model acceptance and tolerance of hard feelings, we model resilience.

 

In my book The Feeling Muscle, I explore this predicament – pushing away and avoiding our emotional discomfort. When we label emotions as either good or bad or acceptable or unacceptable, we place judgment on our feelings; and in so doing, we get in the way of our ability to feel and express what is real. Some emotions feel great, some feel just okay, and some feel really, really hard – and we are indeed capable of feeling all of them.

 

Maybe our parents didn’t like it when we were angry, or maybe we were told to stop every time we cried or screamed or got mad. Perhaps we didn’t have anyone to talk to when we were disappointed or lonely, and we thought we were the only ones with confusing and complicated feelings. It is easy to get in the habit of avoiding heavy and difficult feelings because, as a society, we don’t encourage feeling them – ever. On the contrary, we are taught to push them under the rug, grow thicker skin, and get over them.

 

Letting our children, ourselves, and others in our lives have and feel emotions is vital to being human. To allow someone to have their feelings, even if it is inconvenient, uncomfortable, or intolerable for us, is a gift. When we stay present with our children and ourselves as we feel and express difficult things, we build trust that feelings are just an ordinary part of everyday life. 

 

Feelings are indeed part of our suffering, and yet they are part of our joyful, dull, wonderous and indifferent moments as well. Letting go of an expectation that we should feel a certain way or that we should feel happy, grateful, joyful, and loving all the time brings more acceptance to all our different moments.  

 

When we judge feelings less, we judge ourselves less. When we open up to our fear, sadness, loneliness, frustration, and disappointment, our need to tuck these feelings away or avoid them diminishes. We grow resilience as we sit with hard feelings and as we trust that not all of our feelings will be as hard.

 

As Dr. Seuss in My Many Colored Day so aptly puts it,

 

Some days are yellow, some are blue
On different days, I’m different too.

You’d be surprised how many ways

I change on different colored days.

 

Jenn Rapkin, ND is a naturopathic physician, a bodyworker, a former dancer, and a Frequent Feeler with over 25 years of experience in integrative mental health and body-centered therapies. She is the author of the book The Feeling Muscle: How Felt Emotion Can Help You Sit with and Outlast Hard Feelings and the “We Can Feel Hard Feelings” Blog.

 

Please subscribe to my mailing list to receive my blog posts (1-2 a month, no spam!)