Swear Words and Tears

An Invitation to Feel Your Feelings

Hello ♡,

One of my close friends texted me “F*********k!!” when I texted her my recent biopsy wasn’t benign. I felt seen by her immediate honest response. I felt loved too. I’m glad she didn’t dress up or edit her feelings. She followed up with a much longer text full of support. But I have thought about her first text since. I felt it in my bones, I needed it in a way, and certainly felt validated by it.

I cried in the tiny changing room for a test I was getting. I wasn’t scared, I was just overwhelmed and tender hearted, and I just let myself be that way if needed. I didn’t apologize. The person showing me the key to my locker for my clothes gave me a loving little pep talk. She had a lot to say. I looked up at her and listened from my plastic chair. My tears invited her wisdom, and I’m glad I didn’t apologize for or edit my feelings. I felt connected to her, and I appreciated what she shared. I believe she felt connected to me too. Well, and my mom. They had to hug one last time before we left.

I had a birthday dinner with two of my best friends recently. We did hold hands and cry across the table, deep in our care and feelings about each other and life. It didn’t matter that the table next to us seemed fascinated by the display of emotion. Let them look.

There’s no need to apologize for your feelings. There’s no need to edit them either. They are the evidence of your beating heart and your humanity. They may also be evidence of a growing connection to your own feelings, or evidence of you healing enough to allow them.

And yet, we are so quick to apologize for, or edit, our feelings. Sure there are moments when this is a good decision. But mostly? We stuff our feelings when they make perfect sense.

Why?

There are many lenses to view this from, including unhelpful messages about suppressing certain feelings, as well as cultural and societal pressures to “have it all together.” There is also the awkwardness that can occur when we express our feelings in an unexpected moment (also known as being human).

We often believe that having and showing feelings is going to make us look like we are losing it, don’t have it all together, or we are out of control. Many of us edit, limit, even suppress our feelings because we think this is what we are supposed to do, and for fear of emotional dysregulation. Most of us have been hurt, or hurt someone else, when our feelings were dysregulated. “Emotional dysregulation” is when you have trouble controlling your feelings, or how you act on your feelings. Sure it can be part of a larger diagnosis, but it can also be part of a regular Wednesday for any tired or stressed person. Ever had really big feelings and said something rude you regret? Ever come home from a long day and snapped at someone you love for a silly reason? I would imagine everyone could raise their hands right now. That’s an emotionally dysregulated moment.

We don’t want those moments. We don’t want to create those moments for others, and we don’t want to be hurt by those moments ourselves. But we often confuse the hurt that can come from actions around big feelings with having any display of feelings at all.

I believe, and practice in my therapy work, that the more we will honor, allow, listen to, and yes, let feelings out, the less we will find ourselves in dysregulated moments doing or saying things we regret. It is often our unattended feelings that grow into moments we regret.

An alternative? Learning to allow, honor, share, and stop apologizing for our feelings. Letting ourselves be human, and consequently affirming the humanity in those around us too.

I am not advising we become self-indulgent in letting every feeling out in every moment, centering ourselves. I am not suggesting emotionally dysregulated moments when our feelings are not within our control and we do, or say, things we regret. I am not suggesting yell-texting the F word works in all circumstances (even though it was awesome.) I am also not assuming the medical tech wasn’t surprised by my tears.

I am suggesting we allow ourselves more often to feel the full breadth of our humanity. The full rainbow of feelings. And to stop editing ourselves into robotic versions of humans. I am suggesting that your feelings may be more valid than “dramatic.” I am suggesting your feelings are probably more ok than you are allowing them to be. I am suggesting that your feelings have the right to exist even if it is surprising or awkward to those around you.

Photo by erica steeves on Unsplash

I am inviting all of us to feel our feelings.

That is where the good stuff is.

We chase so many things as “it” in life. But what we are really wired for, and what makes us feel most alive, are most often the moments of connection.¹And guess what connection always has? Feelings. When my friend yell-texted the F word, when I connected with a stranger in a medical setting, those moments included feelings shared. Our feelings are a doorway to our vulnerability, which is when we connect with one another.

I, for one, am weary of working towards any perceived prize I will receive to “have it all together” by robotically refusing to make anyone uncomfortable by me having a feeling. There is no reward coming.

I’m interested instead in the invitation to feel my feelings. And I find over and over again my comfort with my own feelings invites the freedom for others to be comfortable with their own feelings too. This is a gift we not only give ourselves, we also give each other.

With you, whatever you are feeling,

Monica

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Sweetie and Coco feel very famous and very loved with all the kind messages, thank you.

1. Brené Brown credited for research and now popular language that we are “wired for connection". And of course, also the idea of vulnerability as the gateway to connection.