On the validity of feelings
How much time do you spend figuring out if your feelings are valid? I’ve spent a lot of time unpicking my feelings to see if they’re valid, or understandable, looking for validation (sometimes external validation) that I ‘should’ and am ‘allowed’ to feel the way I’m currently feeling.
This isn’t always helpful. Sometimes it is. When you’ve been taught that your responses and feelings are wrong (’oh, it’s not that bad’, ‘boys don’t cry’, ‘you’re being overdramatic’) then sometimes getting that permission to trust your feelings is helpful in the moment. It gives you a foundation to work on learning to trust yourself and your evaluations of situations. There is a danger that you replace one external evaluation with another, so you really need to take that foundation and build on it so you learn to trust your feelings.
Sometimes your feelings are overdramatic. They come from another situation, or because you’re feeling ill and tired and this is just the last straw. Maybe a deep seated anxiety has been triggered by a seemingly benign situation.
Realising we’re overreacting or that our feelings are ‘invalid’ or ‘wrong’ can lead to feelings of shame, disappointment, maybe anger at ourselves. This can lead to more overreactions and heightened emotional state, and we end up spiraling a bit.
The instinct then is to push all those feelings down, both because we feel shame and that’s how we tend to respond to it, but also because if we’re overreacting, reacting less is the answer, so shoving those feelings down and away makes a kind of sense.
However, feelings are a signpost. Just because the signpost is pointing in the wrong direction, doesn’t mean we should ignore it entirely.
Looking at the root of those feelings can help us understand why we react the way we do, and what we can do to manage those feelings. Sometimes we know why we’re reacting this way (for example, when the anxious part of me reacts badly to ambiguity in plans), and we know the feeling is unhelpful, and we have to deal with it anyway.
Telling myself I’m over-reacting is helpful up to a point, but that’s the first step. Realising my internal is affecting my external in a way that isn’t helpful or warranted is step one, then I ground myself, keep breathing, and sit with the discomfort or anxiety. Maybe I need to temporarily push the feelings down. They’re not helpful right now, but I’ll look into them properly at a later time, letting myself follow the feelings to their root.
This practice sometimes leads to breakthroughs about triggers or blockages you’re feeling. Sometimes it doesn’t, and you’re just too tired to deal with whatever it was you lost your shit at. Accepting that you’re human and sometimes overract, and then moving through and past those feelings of guilt and shame is the best way to counteract it.
Your internal world affects your external world, and this is true regardless of the validity of your feelings. Being better at emotional regulation and resilience means working through the times when you’re not those things, to learn what you need in order to grow these skills.