The Paradox of Feelings

Your feelings are not binary.

They aren’t good or bad.

But most of you think they are.  

So that causes you to only allow the feelings you label as “good” and push away those “bad” feelings. After all, why would you want to feel bad?  What would be the purpose?

But when you label a feeling as bad, you are fundamentally labeling part of you as bad.  

And rejecting even the smallest part of yourself is damaging on a soul-level.

You probably learned this when you were very young.  Children are taught that certain feelings and emotions are “unacceptable.”  

Boys are expected to be tough (because feelings are weak, natch) and not show any feelings.

Girls are given a bit more leeway, but are shamed for not having the “right” feelings.

The result?  Living in a culture where everyone responds that they are “fine” when asked how they’re doing.

We’re clearly not fine.  The pandemic has lifted the veil off decades of emotional suppression that has happened at the individual and collective levels.

I prefer to think of feelings as being on a spectrum–light to shadow or high energy to low energy–rather than labeling feelings as good or bad. 

And humans are meant to experience the full range of them.  Your feelings are a NATURAL response to what’s going on in your life.  

It’s normal to feel grief or cry if you lose a patient (something that I experienced recently).

It’s normal to feel angry about social justice issues that are important to you.

It’s normal to feel afraid when doing something new for the first time.

Nothing has gone wrong if you feel this way.  The way to normalize your feelings instead of avoiding them is: 

• Notice the undesired feeling coming up;

• Allow space for the feeling;

• Let it move through you.

After labeling feelings as “bad” for so long, your survival brain will want to resist or have a meltdown.  You’ll want to escape using your preferred method of avoidance (alcohol, sugar, shopping, social media, etc). 

That’s the paradox of feelings: the way out is actually through.  It’s standing in the fire of your feelings. 

When I guide clients through this embodiment process on a coaching call, all kinds of suppressed feelings bubble up to the surface.  It’s slowly like peeling the layers of an onion.  But the result is inevitably the same: freedom, liberation and release.

Feeling your feelings is a critical element of lasting recovery from burnout and overwhelm.  This is something I help women physicians with in my 90-day 1:1 program.  If you’ like to learn learn more, click HERE to schedule a free consultation.