Don't Push them Away

Imagine you are at the beach. You walk into the sea up to your chest. The waves need to pass over you to get to the shore. If you try to hold the waves back and prevent them reaching the shore, you learn how powerful those waves are. They push you back and you quickly get engulfed and overwhelmed. But you don’t have to tumble and struggle against the waves. Those waves are coming no matter what. When you accept that, you can focus on keeping your head above the water as it passes. You still feel the effects. Might even get lifted off your feet for a moment. But you move with the water and brace yourself ready to land back on your feet.

Dealing with emotion is much the same as standing in the waves. When we try to stop feelings in their tracks, we easily get knocked off our feet and find ourselves in trouble, struggling to catch a breath and work out which way is up. When we allow the emotion to wash over us, it rises, peaks and descends, taking its natural course. Emotions are real and valid, but they are not facts. They are a guess. A perspective that we try on for size. An emotion is the brain’s attempt to make sense of the world so that you can meet your needs and survive. Given that what you feel is not a factual statement, neither are thoughts.  Practice being able to step back from thoughts and feelings and see them for what they are – just one possible perspective.

Seeing emotions for what they are is key to being able to process them in a healthy way. You are not your feelings and your feelings are not who you are. The sensation of an emotion is an experience that moves through you. Each emotion can offer you information, but not necessarily the whole story. If there is something emotions are pretty useful for, it’s telling you what you need. When we allow ourselves to feel emotion without blocking it out or pushing it away, we can turn towards it with curiosity, and learn. Discovering what we need is even more valuable if we then use that information to do what is necessary and meet those needs. I think it is always useful to start with the physical. No amount of therapy or psychological skills is going to overturn the destructive impact of poor sleep or diet and lack of physical activity. Once we start taking care of the body we live in, we are already well on the way to being able to work on the rest.