No Feeling Is Final

Feelings are not final, but I often hear folks express fear that if they allow themselves to access feelings of hurt or of crying that they will not be able to stop. But when we fight against those feelings, they just tend to grow and intensify.

However, if we allow ourselves to experience the emotion and wash through us like a wave then we will learn that the emotion will pass and that we will survive.
But when you have been raised in families with either a lot of intense emotion we can learn that emotions are scary. On the other side when raised in a family where emotions were tightly controlled and not expressed it seems scary as well. In both situations you were not taught how to manage and experience emotions in a natural fashion. Then when you reach adulthood you have been left without the needed tools to manage emotions.

Interestingly, this also comes up for positive emotions. Especially when there has been a lot of chaos and dysfunction in your life up until now, feelings of calmness, serenity or happiness can feel completely foreign and ‘not okay’ so you find a way to sabotage it. This can come from feeling unworthy of the positive emotion. Figuring out how to navigate your emotions when you didn’t learn those skills in childhood can be tricky. That’s why therapy can be so valuable!