Feeling is Not Something to Take for Granted

Jenn Rapkin, ND

 

I have been watching The Pitt (a great show by the way). A few episodes ago, the character Duke got some devastating news regarding his health. Dr. Robby was explaining the diagnosis, surgical procedure, and prognosis when he was called away to an urgent ER matter. Duke appeared unfazed at being left alone with this grave information because as he explained, “I have to sit with this for a minute.”

 

While these words may have escaped many viewers or seemed of little importance, I was touched by his words and let them linger within me as I finished watching the episode. Having written a book about sitting with feelings, I am always curious and frankly impressed when someone (even a TV character) makes the rare decision – a very intentional decision – to spend some time with challenging life matters and challenging feelings. 

 

Sitting with hard feelings is an anomaly these days. Truly. With the ability to distract ourselves from any and all uncomfortable, pesty, and unwanted feelings literally at our fingertips, we don’t have to stay with our tough emotions. With our smartphones endlessly buzzing, beeping, flashing, and enticing us to get swept up in all manner of distracting stuff, we don’t need to stay with our thoughts or feelings even for one second.

 

Not only do we easily avoid hard thoughts and feelings with distractions, but we mindlessly bypass our nice thoughts and feelings too. Ponder for a moment all the” likes” and “loves” one receives on our social media platforms. Do you ever stop for a moment and take in one of the likes? What does that mean to take in a like? What would that feel like? When was the last time you received a compliment or a thank you and stopped what you were doing to take it in?  What would that feel like? How long would you give yourself to stay with that feeling?

 

If you’re thinking to yourself “I don’t stop to take in a compliment, a moment of appreciation, or a beautiful sunset,” you are not alone. We rarely stay with our good or cool feelings. We don’t prioritize (or even talk about) letting a lovely feeling hang out for a minute. And that means … if we can’t take in a lovely or joyful feeling, our hard feelings don’t stand a chance.

 

So why does it matter if we pick up our phone when we are feeling anxious or grab a beer when we are perseverating on a frustration or insecurity? It’s just a coping mechanism, right? It’s self-soothing, right? It’s simply a distraction, we might argue.

 

Of course, we need to push through some hard feelings to get things done. Of course, we need distractions in our lives to act as much-needed downtime and to break up our day-to-day responsibilities. If we stopped and felt all our feelings all day long, we would likely be very exhausted and unproductive.

 

But here’s the rub … if grabbing our phone (or chocolate or wine or the clicker) becomes a habit and if it becomes our go-to way of handling hard feelings, we never learn to outlast the challenging feelings swirling within us. And we won’t trust that we can handle those same feelings when they visit us again. Ultimately, we won’t believe or understand that hard feelings wax, wane, and pass through us. We will see distraction, numbing, and avoiding as our only options to manage difficult emotions. And this is problematic.

 

In today’s fast-paced world, there are three main ways we manage our hard emotions.

1. Distract, avoid, and numb ourselves

2. Become overwhelmed

3. Shutdown

The alternative to these ways of coping is what I call “exercising our feeling muscle.” Duke in The Pitt exercised his feeling muscle when Dr. Robby left him alone in his ER room. He made the decision to be in the present moment; he was taking in some really tough news. “I have to sit with this for a minute.”

 

Sitting with a feeling, even for just a minute or two before moving on to something else, is bringing awareness to a feeling. And bringing awareness to a feeling is worth a minute or two of our time.

 

What if we could invite a feeling in for a brief visit – as if we were gently shaking the feeling’s hand? Maybe this sounds strange, but maybe it is a way to connect with ourselves and our present moment too?

 

If we are a tad more ambitious in terms of exercising our feeling muscle and perhaps a bit more curious as well, we could welcome a feeling into our bodies – welcome it to stay a while and get to know it a bit better. Does it have a location within our body – an intensity, a shape, a density, a color within us? Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t.

 

If we can take a minute, now and then, here and there, and invite a feeling in, we begin a very important process – the process of experiencing what it’s like for a feeling to find a home within us. And whether that feeling is a brief house guest or whether it overstays its welcome, we have both validated and nurtured our feeling muscle by opening to it – because feeling is not something to take for granted.