Why we’ve got to try and feel our feelings, not think our way out of them

Its easier to say….’I know’

I know that 

Its easier to say … ‘I think’

I think that

Its easier to say …’I am…’

I am annoyed

Its easier to say ..’I cant..’

I cant do this anymore

Its harder to say ‘I feel..’

As I I feel sad, I feel happy, I feel good… when ____ happens

Not ‘you made me feel’ or ‘you should feel’ – having someone else to blame, or dictate our feelings, but ‘I feel’

I feel fine covers a lot though doesn’t it…

It was recently said to me that in the conversations about men and emotions, that its not that men dont feel emotions, but that they lack the language to describe and articulate them. I look at my own life, and wonder when I could, or felt safe to, express how ‘I feel’ or ‘felt’ about anything. It strikes me as ironic, as during a time when I was helping young people explore emotional literacy in some mentoring work, that I numbed my own pain, that I had no handle on, or no experience of doing this myself. I know about emotional literacy, is vastly different to me being able to say ‘I feel’ .

You quickly learn as a child not to worry about your own emotions, when there’s more emotional people in the family to care for, when you’re on tenterhooks all the time. You learn to ignore feelings. Thats what I did. Switch onto full on survival mode.

Yet at the same time I thought I was self aware. I wasn’t.

If Daniel Coleman is to be believed, its about being aware of our mood and our thoughts about that mood (emotional intelligence, p 47) He says when we say ‘this anger I am feeling’ is more freeing than trying to deny someone the right to feel angry. Growing up in a ‘shouldn’t feel’ emotions culture, let alone a coping with other persons over emotional state culture, denies the healthy growth of emotional awareness, of the self.

Research has shown that those who accept and are aware of their emotions, are more likely to feel both good and negative ones, than people who distract, deny and suppress emotions. Coleman writes, the more we notice in terms of emotions, the richer we are emotionally.

But what about not being able to express or articulate emotions. A case study in Colemans book talks about the man who literally had flat, colourless emotions, who ‘lacked the words’ for feelings, and whilst he goes on to state (in 1996) that further research is needed on this (it might be done by now) he and others were drawn to the significant amount of people who literally could not feel and why this was the case.

I like this line, on the back of their preliminary findings then..

if you could put words to what you were felt, it was yours

and that, as they said was the problem to those who couldn’t feel or have no words for them, they couldn’t own their own feelings. Often, that just meant feeling other peoples.

I feel….. well what doing I feel. What do you feel?  and, Men, I address you, to  ask that you take notice of, and allow yourself to feel. Allow yourself to feel, and try and articulate the feeling, saying I feel angry, happy, blissful, calm, or feeling anxious, tired, hot, aroused…

or any one of these… practice saying, feeling, acknowledging them..I will..

Saying I feel isn’t weak.

Its so hard work that it requires strength. Ignoring I feel is so so much worse.  I get if you cant. I get if you cant because its buried under hurts and trauma. I know. But admit that too, and prioritise talking, therapy and loving yourself to be fully you.

‘I think’ was always an easy get out for me. ‘I know’ was too. Hide emotions because not being in a safe place to express them, or to peel off the layers to experience them.

To be more me, Im going to try and speak from my heart and say I feel.

Its not too late to start. I owe it to myself, and everyone around me.

This may help: