How to Feel Your Emotions
And Improve Your Health
I was a very well-behaved kid growing up, because I had to be.
My father gave my mother a lot of drama, so I knew I didn’t want to add to my mother’s burdens.
As a result, I stuffed a lot of negative emotions.
I recently told my new therapist I wanted to work on feeling my emotions. I noticed that when my father passed away, I had a hard time grieving. I felt numb a lot of the time, like everything was surreal.
In my most recent therapy session, I told my therapist I got mad at my daughter that day.
“Tell me about it,” my therapist said.
And so I gave her the play-by-play of what happened.
After I finished the story, my therapist told me to go back to the part where I was angry.
“Where do you feel it in your body?” she asked.
“In my chest and face. It’s tightening,” I said.
And to my surprise, I felt like crying.
My therapist told me, You said you wanted to work on feeling your emotions. Here’s how:
1.) When you’re feeling emotional, name the emotion and see where you’re feeling it in your body.
2.) Sit with the physical sensations for a bit.
3.) Examine the thoughts and beliefs that are keeping your emotions in your body. For example, I thought it was “bad” for moms to get mad at their kids.
4.) Show yourself some compassion, reminding yourself it’s normal and healthy to have those emotions. Everyone has them.
5.) Ride the emotional wave. Don’t act out when you’re in the emotion.
6) When the physical sensation has subsided, you can communicate what you’re feeling in a way that allows people to hear you (i.e. in my case of anger, no yelling)
I was very uncomfortable with having the emotion of anger, and allowing myself to almost cry. “Good” Asian Christian women are not allowed to be angry. And crying feels… embarrassing and vulnerable, especially in front of others.
“Why do we have to feel our emotions?” I asked my therapist, wishing I didn’t have be so uncomfortable.
“What happens when you don’t allow yourself to feel your emotions?” she asked.
“They get stuck in your body,” I answered.
She nodded.
I look forward to feeling my emotions because, as my therapist said, if you suppress your negative emotions, you also suppress your positive ones.
How do you feel your emotions? Also, how do you keep yourself calm when you’re angry?
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This post is sponsored BrightStory, a boutique college admissions consulting company owned by Stanford graduate, professional journalist and “coach of admission coaches” Alice Chen, who also created Happy Asian Woman.
So good that your therapist is helping you to feel your emotions. My therapist who specializes in felt sense and EMDR, has been instrumental in my getting more in touch with my anger, which I dared not to feel or express due to my childhood family trauma and upbringing. Being able tap into my anger helped me draw healthy boundaries as a result.
I know a lot of people, especially those with Asian backgrounds, have trouble tapping into tears. I wrote a piece about crying recently and would like to share with you:
https://lilypond.substack.com/p/cry-baby-cry
Those are great pieces of advice. Harder to do in the moment, of course, but still important to try.
As a teacher, I've had to learn to control my emotions. I've had to learn to wait to go home to cry and rage. But I've also learned to express myself to my students without getting too emotional. Sure, I've had outbursts, but they're controlled. I can never allow my students to feel unsafe or afraid.
I try to be a good role model as much as possible, which means, I have to let them know when they're acting foolish. I also readily apologize if I misunderstood a situation, or if I had a bad moment, whatever. It's about owning up and showing them what adults act like.