There’s A Reason You Feel This Way
It’s okay to feel overwhelmed.
It’s okay to feel angry.
It’s okay to feel disappointed.
There’s a reason why we feel the way we do. Our body is responding to what’s happening around us.
You have a right to your feelings.
Your feelings are valid.
You don’t have to stay stuck in them.
Often, we have an emotional response to what’s happening in the moment. Our feelings can be a relief, messy, or confusing.
Sometimes we haven’t given ourselves the opportunity to process our feelings in the moment and express them. We hold them in for the benefit of those around us, our emotional responses layer up, creating a bottleneck, until one thing goes wrong, and BAM! Everything comes out.
I’ve heard the same message repeated in support groups, “It isn’t the big troubles that worry us. It’s the little ones. We keep our emotions in check while we handle big things. Then a shoelace breaks, and we lose it.”
If you want to feel differently than you currently do about a situation, or if you need help with how you express what you’re feeling, then reaching out for help could be the right answer.
I used to be afraid when I was home alone. Even as an adult. There was a sense of impending doom. I hated it. It was out of my control and repetitive. I knew I was safe and the likelihood of anything bad happening to me while home alone was miniscule. But logic didn’t help me feel any better.
After working with a therapist
I realized that my fear was rooted in several traumatic experiences I had as a child, (that occurred in the night). Once I worked on those specific instances, I was able to see why I continued to feel fear as an adult despite there being no real threat to my safety. My brain was doing an excellent job of trying to keep me safe. It was as if my brain was saying, “You experienced a threat several times while it was nighttime, so now you’ll be in a heightened state of alert when you’re alone and it’s dark outside.”
Being afraid didn’t keep me safe. And I spent far too much time feeling afraid when it wasn’t necessary.
There was a reason why I felt the way I did.
My emotional response to being home, alone, at night, was not irrational. I had plenty of experiences to train myself into perceiving a threat. While the fear wasn’t irrational, it did become bothersome.
My feeling of fear wasn’t wrong. Instead, it was based on old information and was no longer useful to me. I outgrew my need for fear at night. Being able to reflect on why I had felt that way, how those feelings had been useful, and why I no longer needed them, helped me to shift my perception and trust myself that I was safe.
Thankfully, I realized I had been stuck in my feelings of fear for too long and wanted change. Working with a therapist provided that opportunity.
There’s a reason you feel the way you do. It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling. But if you’re stuck in unhelpful emotions, it’s okay to ask for help.
This post was written by Jessica Flood, MSW, and published by Convenient Counseling Services.
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