When our feelings help us do Powerful things
Hello beautiful,
Yesterday I was talking to a friend and we stumbled onto a subject that brought up a lot of feelings for me. And I thought to myself – oh wow! These feelings are still hanging out, I wonder why?
It was related to a several-months’ long experience that had happened earlier this year where I had to advocate for my child multiple times over an issue at school.
When this issue first arose I had a tremendous amount of rage. I mean when our kids are involved it can very easily bring up deeply protective emotions, right? Survival is often not far behind if we’re not aware. But I noticed I also had a lot of fear.
And so I had spent a lot of time giving space to these emotions – feeling them deeply so that I could learn not just why they had arisen – but how they could help me take powerful, clear and confident action.
Emotions don’t just come up for no reason, there is always a deeper purpose. There is always a need that is wanting to be communicated. And the way that I approach my feelings is to be curious and ask myself:
What does this feeling want me to see or know?
What does it want to help me with?
What is the unmet need here, or the values/beliefs that it’s trying to express.
Now the only way you can get to this deeper connection with an emotion is to really give space to feel it. Because if you talk to your feelings when they are super high, and activated – you’ll get lost in your thoughts and the story about them.
If I had asked my rage as soon as it came up why it was here, it would have gone something like: Because this person is being terrible or no one is protecting your child and they aren’t safe! You need to do something dramatic!
So before we dive into looking at why our feelings arose, and how we can respond with effective action, we need to give them space. We need to allow the energy and sensations of the emotion to be fully felt in the body.
To create some distance with the endless stories and repetitive thoughts in our minds that the feelings are creating.
And to fully feel these emotions.
Then we get to this beautiful incredible place of wisdom – and we can see and hear why the emotions came up in the first place. And what the most effective action is to take.
For me the rage wanted me to stand up and be courageous so I could advocate for my child.
The fear came up to remind me to be mindful about how I was communicating.
I know from the past when things with my kids / safety issues come up, I want to turn into the Incredible Hulk and destroy any threats in their midst, by any means necessary.
So when I spent some time with the fear, I saw how it didn’t want me to pour my anger onto people.
And by fully feeling this incredible mix of feelings I saw how I could be clear, strong and advocate for my child, and stand up for my values.
Because what my feelings also know is that I can easily also fall into people-pleasing/fawning.
In the past I have deeply struggled with witnessing other people’s emotions. They have so often felt very unsafe to me, and so I would collapse my feelings, and not say what I wanted or needed.
And my feelings didn’t want that! They wanted me to be clear and draw strong boundaries.
They wanted me to say: No, this is not OK.
By spending time regularly with this mix of feelings I could communicate with power and agency, on the numerous times I needed to. And I didn’t get overwhelmed by this experience.
So it’s this combination of really tending to our feelings and connecting to their underlying needs, what they are trying to show us/guide us with /get us to see.
And appreciating that the fear was there to give me some caution around how I communicated and to keep the anger in check so I didn’t start throwing blame and anger around at people.
After several months of advocating, the situation was finally resolved.
Yesterday I was reminded of how much powerlessness I also felt at this time, how hard it was for me to feel this powerlessness without wanting to ‘grab back my power’ by burning everything down or driving me into collapsing into a heap of hopelessness.
Feeling our feelings all the way through makes us more resilient and stronger, so we can do things like self-advocate, speak up against injustice, sort out complicated situations – with confidence, calm and clarity (even when it’s hard.)
Feeling our feelings and not getting lost in the story of he said/she said/they are wrong etc. also makes us stronger, because we detach from other people’s feelings/reactions and have incredible clarity about how we want to navigate our own experiences, rather than worrying about other people’s emotions or their experiences. We can shut down hours of spiralling thoughts blaming others with this new understanding, and save ourselves hours/weeks/months of bitterness and resentment.
Feeling our feelings all the way through gets us to a place where we can hear the deeper wisdom and guidance about what we need to do.
Our emotions come from our authenticity, our truest expression of who we are, our soul. They tell us what is right for us, our values, what our needs are, what needs to be changed, what actions need to be taken and who we are.
And in that collection of feelings that came up yesterday I realised, Oh, this anger around this situation doesn’t want to fully leave because it’s worried I won’t be looking out for other situations that might occur where there might be unsafety for my kids. It wants me to ‘stay on guard’.
And I saw too, Oh, I feel some guilt here for not noticing sooner that there was a problem, and not advocating more quickly.
My anger is worried that I won’t be on the lookout. It wants me to be really alert so I won’t let something like this happen again.
So I sat with these feelings and I gave them a lot of love, empathy and appreciation.
I said thank you for helping me out with that really challenging situation this year. You helped me sort it out with dignity, agency and confidence.
And I say, I see your worry that I might not be looking out for unsafety, but I am more aware now. You’ve helped me feel more capable of dealing with challenges like these, so I know I can do it again if I need to.
And with that the anger starts to dissipate. It’s done its job. It’s delivered its message.
When we can turn towards our feeling like this, know how to understand them and not get carried away by the dramatic thoughts / blame / stories etc. but give them what they actually need – space, empathy, support, appreciation – they can not only help us live in a way that is most aligned to our values and needs, but also help us achieve what we need to achieve to meet those needs.
And sometimes that is standing up for ourselves and others to say: No, this is not OK.
We can all learn to journey through the sensations and energy our emotions create in a way that feels safe, and learn from them in this deeper way.
To start to see them in a much more friendly way, as like an internal guidance system, a collection of helpers wanting us to live our most authentic expression, to show us how to connect to our innate wisdom, our own personal genius, our own power.
When we learn to navigate our feelings in this way we get the keys to our most beautiful, wise and authentic selves.
I would love to know if this resonates with you. Can you see how your feelings can be incredible guides? Hit reply and let me know 💗
Love,
Diana
