In speaking with my client (let’s call her “CeCe”, because I love Beaches), we spoke at length about what I feel is a common obstacle for most women today: acknowledging our “bad” feelings. In 2008, we’re expected to be strong, independent, responsible, nurturing, & always smiling/chipper/positive/bouncy. We end up making sure that everyone around us is taken care of, usually at the expense of our own self-care. When we have a “bad” feeling come up (anger, fear, frustration, et al) we try to make it go away as fast as we can. Quick! Get rid of it before anyone sees!

But the outcome of pushing those feelings down – or of not even acknowledging them to begin with – is a permanent state of unease and falsity with a 0% chance of turning around the situation that has made you feel angry/frustrated/upset in the first place. At least if you acknowledge (I know I should find a synonym for “acknowledge”, but I just like that word so much!) that you’re in a “bad” feeling, give it a name (anger? frustration? out of control?), and discover why you’re feeling this feeling (“My boss didn’t acknowledge my hard work”/”I hate this stupid job”/ “I’ve had spinach stuck in my teeth all day and nobody told me”), you can then allow yourself to ride this ride until it comes to a complete stop. If it’s not the time or the place to ride the roller coaster (or if you don’t meet the height requirement), then at least allow yourself to focus on your breathing for 30 seconds so you can get past the feeling & reflect on it later. Either way, it’s going to allow you to discover what prompts these feelings so you can figure out how to circumvent it while also allowing you to be true to yourself & not bottle things up inside.

How do you handle “bad” feelings?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Happy Hooplah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.