Welcome to the fifth instalment in a series of articles featuring real-life stories of healing and transformation based on actual people I’ve helped over the years in therapy.
Last month we explored Dealing not Denying, and you can read the article here.
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THE SITUATION:
Brian, a school teacher in his mid 30s, was struggling to tell me about a difficult encounter he had with his parents the weekend before he came to see me in my office.
The experience had left him feeling disconnected and numb. He told me: “I’m hurt by what they did and angry. But mostly I’m feeling frustrated with myself for not being able to let my feelings out. I know what I’m feeling. I know what’s there but something’s blocking it. Anchoring me down.”
He went on to tell me about the conversations he often had with himself in his head when out running. “I imagine talking to my parents, telling them how I feel. It’ll seem as though I’m starting to let my feelings out, but then I’ll reach the end of my run and realize nothing’s changed. I don’t feel any different. I think what’s the use, it’s just not worth it.”
THE ISSUE /PROBLEM
Brian has reached the stage in his relationship with his parents where he’s considering giving up and throwing in the towel. He’s thinking about things he wants to say to his parents rather than just letting himself feel what he’s feeling in the moment. It’s important for him to see that short-circuiting his emotional experience is leading him to feel anxious and stuck. He needs to try to work through his feelings to completion and get to a different place, and to do that, the first step he needs to take is to accept what he feels.
THE PROCESS
After Brian had shared with me how his relationship with his parents was upsetting him, I told him that it pained me to think he would feel that way. He nodded but seemed genuinely taken aback by my expression of care and unsure how to react to it.
Eventually, after struggling to find the words, he said: “Thank you. It’s painful to me as well…I mean I think if I could just…”
At that point I asked Brian if he was noticing anything happening inside of him in that moment.
After a brief pause he said: “There’s a warm feeling in my chest.”
He shifted and sat up as though trying to rise above the feelings that were nearing the surface.
“Try and stay present with what you’re feeling,” I said. “What’s there for you?”
He tried to be matter of fact about the empathy I’d shown him. “Not a lot of people say that to you, do they? It’s a nice thing to say.” Then he shook his head. “I just don’t understand why my parents couldn’t say nice things to me. Why they’d always have to focus on my shortcomings or…”
At this point, Brian stopped and closed his eyes.
I reassured him that everything was all right and that he should continue to let the feelings come.
He looked at me with innocent eyes and said, “I feel like a little kid. I remember coming home from an awards ceremony at school. I had all these awards and my parents had nothing to say to me. I just remember sitting in my bedroom…”
Brian’s head fell forward and his shoulders began to shake as wave after wave of sorrow washed over him.
I encouraged him to breathe and let the feelings move through him while remaining present with his pain.
After a minute or two, the tide began to recede, and Brian sat in stillness and sighed. He looked up at me and said, “This is so what’s been holding me down.”
“Not any more, Brian,” I said. “Not anymore.”
As we worked together, Brian began to come alive emotionally, no small achievement considering that his sense of being weighed down in his life was the understandable consequence of him having grown up in a family environment where there was little tolerance for emotion.
He told me his backstory, about how all emotions seemed to be met with distance or disdain in his family, be they excitement, pride, sadness, or anger. This environment had led Brian to doubt his feelings, to suppress and deny them, resulting in him feeling listless and depressed.
Brian told me that his mother tended to be patronizing and judgmental toward him, behavior that bothered him. “It makes me angry, I guess.”
“You’re not sure?” I asked.
“No, I mean yeah, it makes me angry. She can be so mean.”
“What’s that like?” I asked, hoping he would allow himself to feel his way through what was happening inside of him.
He looked at me and said, “For a second, I feel like I could get worked up. But then I feel kind of bad. I mean, I don’t think she realizes what she’s doing, so it’s not really fair of me to get angry.”
Brian was judging himself. At the moment his anger was surfacing, he interrupted it and questioned if it was a valid response to have toward his mother.
It’s a common dilemma. Many of us feel uncomfortable about having negative feelings toward a loved one. We’re concerned that if we let these feelings come out they’ll somehow replace the positive feelings we have for this person.
But they don’t.
Multiple feelings can and do co-exist. And as we all know, sometimes it’s the people we love the most who make us most angry.
In another session together, I asked Brian to tune into his body and describe what he noticed going on inside of him.
“I feel sort of tense,” he said.
“Where exactly are you feeling that?”
“In my chest.”
“Okay. Focus on that place. Don’t try and make anything happen. Just notice the tension and see what comes.”
Brian moved his shoulders back and forth and looked up at me and said, “It starts to open up a bit.”
By focusing on his experience, Brian was making room inside himself for his feelings and the energy of his anger was beginning to move.
“What else do you notice?” I asked.
“I’m feeling warm. My skin feels hot.”
“Let yourself be with that. What else is there?”
He sat for a moment then shook his head. “I’m starting to think about it,” he said. “I’m going off into my thoughts.”
Brian was getting better at recognizing when he started to think about things and lose contact with his feelings.
“Just let the thoughts fall away,” I said. “Don’t give them any power.”
Brian focused inward again and after a moment his eyebrows lifted and he looked startled. “Wow, I feel all this energy inside me rising up.”
THE RESULTS
In our work together, Brian learned how to be present with his feelings, and to open up to his experiences in a way that enabled him to heal the pain and sorrow he’d been carrying around with him since childhood.
He admitted he felt conflicted about his anger toward his mother. But he could also see how denying his feelings wasn’t getting him anywhere and instead was making things worse. This pattern had led Brian to feeling anxious and stuck and to recognize that he needed to try something different – to give himself permission to feel his feelings, as that was the only way for him to get to the other side of this.
SUMMARY
When we truly feel and accept our feelings, we free up a wellspring of energy inside us. Letting this emotional energy flow in the way nature intended takes us to a place of wholeness and renewal.
Even when we’re experiencing painful emotions, allowing ourselves to feel our feelings is part of the healing process. It increases our vitality while bringing clarity and meaning to our lives. It also connects us to a deeper, fuller experience of our selves.
And we also feel a real sense of achievement and empowerment at having faced and mastered something we have been fearing and avoiding for so long.
Fear can prevent us from discovering the simple truth that, when fully felt, feelings don’t last forever, no matter how intense they may seem in the moment we’re experiencing them. They’re like an ocean wave, starting off small, building in intensity, reaching a peak and then dissipating. They can come and go quickly, or take time to resolve. And several waves of emotion can arrive one after the other, or we can experience a single wave that rises and falls on its own.
Acceptance of these emotions is one of the key principles of mindfulness. It requires us to see things free of judgment and criticism. We need to see and accept our feelings for what they are. Anger is anger. Sadness is sadness. Accept them and they will pass. Fight them and we just make things worse.
We don’t have to like our feelings, but if we can accept them and give them space we can begin to feel our way through to a different and better place. We can listen to the information our feelings are giving us and make better choices about how to respond to them.
