Most of us have difficulty being present with our emotions, simply allowing them to exist as they are. Instead, we use various strategies to avoid our feelings, oftentimes without even being aware of it. This stems from how we were conditioned to relate to emotions by the family and culture we grew up in and impactful events during our childhood, as well as our natural instinct to avoid pain and discomfort.
Unfortunately, being disconnected from our feelings makes us less authentic and self-aware, which comes with significant costs. We don’t understand what is truly motivating us and what our real needs are. Instead of experiencing the freedom and relaxation of being ourselves, we spend energy defending against our feelings, stuck in unconscious patterns. We become tense and out of touch with our bodies, which contributes to disease and limits our physical pleasure. In short, unprocessed emotions shape our lives without our knowing it.
In order to become more conscious people, and more psychologically, spiritually, and even physically healthy, we must change our relationship to our inner experience. The work that is required of us is both simple and difficult: to learn how to be present with ourselves in a non-judgmental and curious way. Rather than avoiding and rejecting our emotions, or acting on them impulsively, we must develop the capacity to mindfully experience them.
When we judge our feelings or try to get rid of them, we are rejecting a part of ourselves. As I mentioned, this is partly rooted in our conditioning, such as the way that our feelings were responded to as children, when we learned that certain emotions were bad or unsafe for us to have. It may also have to do with having experienced others express certain emotions in a harmful way.
Our experience in our family and in our larger society causes us to develop beliefs about what we should and should not feel. We may admonish ourselves to “stay positive, be strong, don’t be angry,” etc. These inner pressures may be rooted in unconscious memories, such as rejection by a parent for being sad or angry.
If we grew up religious, we may have been taught that certain thoughts and feelings needed to be repressed because they were sinful. Unfortunately, the behavior of many religious leaders demonstrates the limitations of this approach. When we try to deny a feeling it just makes it more likely that it will build up underneath the surface, causing us to act it out in an unconscious way.
If we decide that some of our feelings are good and some are not, we end up in conflict with ourselves and we miss the opportunity to understand what we really feel and why. In order to not feel, we have to disconnect from ourselves and dull our awareness. On the other hand, allowing ourselves to have our real feelings is how we can come to truly know ourselves.
Experiencing our feelings doesn’t mean letting ourselves be taken over by them and acting inappropriately. If we mindfully observe our emotions, we can allow ourselves to feel them fully, without acting them out or believing that they are the truth. When people become blinded by their emotional reactions they are not actually being present with their feelings, nor trying to understand where they come from.
Our emotions have meaning and are often related to experiences from our past. For example, we may have a strong emotional response to something because we are reminded of a difficult event from our childhood. Often this is unconscious, and bringing awareness to our feelings can illuminate these issues and help us understand the true significance of what we’re experiencing. Being present with our real feelings is how we start to heal our emotional injuries, instead of avoiding them or inflicting them on each other.
When we have a healthy relationship with our feelings we don’t reject them, assume that our emotional reactions are the truth, or act them out on others; we welcome them with curiosity and mindful awareness, and use them as a gateway into deeper understanding of ourselves.
This attitude of openness towards all feelings is expressed in this poem, written by the 13th century Sufi mystic, Rumi:
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-Rumi (translation by Coleman Barks).
