An Unbearable Truth

From an early age most of us are trained in various ways of handling our feelings of anger. This often is not an intentional training. In many cases we’re just modeling traits we observe in our family when we’re developing. As children we tend to see our care takers as the best, or the greatest people in our lives, so of course we would want to be just like them. We try to emulate their behaviors and we have no base line for comparison to know which of these behaviors are healthy or not. 

In many situations, we are made to feel ashamed of strong feelings of anger or injustice towards us. We aren’t often allowed the freedom of our own voice. In this emotional climate there is no safe space to address our true feelings, and this is such a huge disservice to us and our development. We often learn that it’s less hurtful to keep our anger to ourselves and not let them show, and eventually not even acknowledge them at all. This eventually leads us down a path of avoidance, and avoidance is at the root of most of our deepest emotional problems. 

Our emotions however; are not our enemy, when we do not honor them appropriately we are denying ourselves the wealth of information that exists in them. We are losing out on half of the narrative of our lives. Through years of avoidance our emotions can become so uncomfortable for us to sit with and give them space to just simply exist. This can lead us to unhealthy ways of coping with and dealing with them. 

We add value to our emotions. Feelings of joy and happiness have so much permission to exist in our lives, but when it comes to anger, hatred, sadness we tend to deem these as lesser emotions and hold them back and keep them to ourselves. When we do this we deny ourselves the wholeness of our life experience. Even our darker emotions have the right to be heard and seen for what they are. When we allow them space to exist they will process on their own, freeing us of the burden of having to carry them with us until they come out at inappropriate times. 

In recent weeks I have been able to work with people around processing their old forbidden feelings. Just naming the anger, the disgust, the hatred gives it so much space to begin processing. A colleague of mine said that “our unaddressed emotions are like a dog that never gets attention, when someone finally notices it it acts up and goes wild because it is so excited to be seen.” This made so much sense, because often times when these emotions come up for the first time they can feel so wild and like we might lose control of them. When given enough space they will eventually settle down and we can begin to really hear the message that is living in those emotions. 

Far too often we tend to ask ourselves the poisonous question, “What does this say about me?” We demand to know, once we have identified a way that we may be feeling, “what kind of person would feel this way”? When we do this, the feeling becomes judged. It has no room to process because it is being held unfairly, because we are afraid of what that means about us, and how that goes against the image we would like to maintain about ourselves. 

The truth is, no matter how horrible, awful or dark something you are feeling can seem; you are not the first one who has ever felt that way. I feel fairly confident saying that all of us, no matter how we may seem, have experienced some harrowing emotions. We are taught so thoroughly to be ashamed of these things that we barely open up about them enough to find out. So what is that doing to us internally?

We have a hard emotion that we have assigned as being bad, we hold it back rather than process it, we guilt ourselves because we believe it to be shameful to feel the way we do, that translates into us believing ourselves to be bad inherently, and it starts to disintegrate our sense of self worth. One of the many causes of depression and anxiety is a faulty sense of self worth. It’s no wonder this is such a pervasive problem that it seems everyone lives with. At least as far as I can tell.

The solution to the suffering is in the suffering. There is no way around this truth. If you are uncomfortable with something that you are feeling, you need to feel it. You need to feel it, know it, hear it’s language and let it process through. The way that our bodies, minds and hearts function has been developed over thousands of years, it’s silly to think that you, as far as you have come in your particular life time, can know better than this process. So rather than trying to hide our emotions because they make us uncomfortable, why not just offer them space, and let them tell their story?

I want to leave this writing saying that no matter how perilous your fear or anguish, there is always a way through it. So many of us live with in private hells, and we suffer alone needlessly. If we could be more open with who we truly were we could see that there are many in the world who still accept us. Living your truth won’t make you all of the friends, but it will help you make the right ones. In order for us to open up to our world to seek this acceptance we must first be accepting of ourselves and all that lies inside of us. Life is so short, and there is so much potential to have true bliss in our daily experiences. The more we deny ourselves the truth in who we are, the further away that bliss gets. I don’t think that’s a loss any of us can afford.