Emotions

To Feel, or Not to Feel?

I imagine many of us might have grown up hearing our parents, or teachers, or friends, or … (fill in the blanks) say: “Oh, don’t feel sad,” or “Don’t cry, it’s going to be ok,” or even perhaps “You shouldn’t get so upset.” 

Growing up with such messages can be very confusing! You might have asked yourself: “Why do I feel this way? Or ” What’s wrong with me?” Or you might have internalized the message and spoken to yourself in rather harsh tones, like: “I hate myself when I feel this way!”

It may be that our parents, teachers, or friends simply wanted to spare us feeling the pain we were experiencing; they might have wanted to comfort or reassure us. It may be that our pain brought up pain or discomfort in them, and that they were at a loss for how to support us in that moment. It may be that, to them, it didn’t seem like “enough” to simply be fully present and deeply listen to our emotions. 

All of this is understandable. And yet, the impact of this “interdiction to feel” is that it might teach us to be at odds with our own emotions, not knowing what else to do with them but set them aside, brush them away, suppress them, or criticize ourselves for having them. Through these experiences, we might have also learned which emotions are OK to feel and express, and which are not. And this learning might have even become generalized into a broader questioning of the legitimacy of feeling emotions at all! “To feel or not to feel?” 

What if this is the wrong question? 

What if the question is more along the lines of: “What are my emotions telling me? What are they pointing to? What if they carry important information regarding my well-being, my desires, and what I value?” In the words of Marc Brackett, Director of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, “From an emotional intelligence perspective, all emotions are information. They are cues, signals — telling us to approach or avoid, to stay or to go.” Brackett adds that “It’s what we do with our emotions that matters.”

The thing about emotions is that we all have them. They are human and universal. Emotions are neither positive nor negative, neither good nor bad. It’s true that we might label some emotions as pleasant and others as unpleasant, or even very unpleasant. It’s true that we might act on our emotions in ways that harm us or others. And it’s also true that the experience of naming the quality of an emotion (pleasant/unpleasant) is a way that our mind alerts us to the presence of that emotion. We become aware of an emotion when we notice the impact of that emotion on our experience, on our sense of well-being. 

So emotions are information! Indeed, our emotions signal to us whether our needs are being met or not met in relation to something that matters to us. 

Needs??? Yes, needs!

While as a culture we seem to have become much more comfortable talking about feelings, for many of us the word “need” is still a bit “taboo.” “Need” can conjure up notions of “neediness,” “weakness,” “lack.” The word “need” can even bring up questions of “worthiness,” of being “deserving.” In reality, like feelings, needs are universally shared by all humans. Let me ask you: can you think of a time when you had a need for well-being, for connection, for meaning, play, understanding, peace, honesty, autonomy, etc? 

If I’m hungry or thirsty, my need for physical well-being is not being met. I can satisfy this need by getting some nourishment, such as eating or drinking something. If I’m feeling lonely or sad, it may be that my need for connection or affection is not being met. Strategies to satisfy this need might include calling a friend or going for a walk in the park or playing with my dog.

Acknowledging and welcoming an emotion, however unpleasant it may feel in the moment, is like opening a door, a golden gate of awareness to a precious human need. Opening that door is the first step we can take to honor our needs, and to explore ways, options, strategies, to meet those needs. 

When we fully welcome needs as mattering, legitimate, universally shared by all human beings, we are also welcoming our creative imagination into a partnership with us, a partnership in exploring avenues for satisfying our needs. In honoring the beauty of our needs, we are honoring ourselves and, actually, all of humanity. 

Looked at it this way, our emotions are not only cues or signals, as Brackett puts it.
Our emotions are also gifts. 

If you would like to further explore the relationship between feelings and needs, I recommend downloading the Feelings Inventory and Needs Inventory from the Center for Nonviolent Communication.