It’s easy to talk about positive feelings but it’s uncomfortable to discuss all the negative feelings. We live in a “pack it away” society. From a young age, most of us are taught to “get over it”, “pull yourself up”, and emotions are dismissed, or “packed away”.
I can think of specific instances in my childhood where I was feeling sad or scared and my emotions were dismissed by the adult caring for me. This taught me that I was not allowed to have negative feelings. I should not be scared of a shot from the doctor, I should not feel sad when a relationship ended, and I was not allowed to be angry. I was, however, allowed to show happiness as much as I wanted.
Feelings
When I began my degree in psychology, I began to understand the society trend to pack away negative emotions. Men, more so than women, are taught that it’s not ok to experience any emotions unless it is anger or happiness.
Men and women have been trained from a young age to not speak in a language of emotions and this is a serious problem. When we cannot identify our emotions, we can not verbalize how we feel and what we need. This blocks us from connecting to the loved ones in our lives.
Starting out as a therapist, I was afraid to push on the negative emotions. I blame this on that “pack it away” training I received during most of my life. I would explore and validate emotions but I had to learn that it was OK to push on the emotions.
It was, and is, OK to sit in the emotions while the client is experiencing the emotions. Now, this is an easy task for me. It’s easy to identify and validate the emotions that the client(s) are experiencing and it’s easier to normalize the discomfort of the emotions.
Feelings & Family
When I became a mother, I’d already been practicing therapy for several years. I thought back on the “pack it away” training and decided that I didn’t want to conform to this as a parent.
Having 2 sons, it was especially important to me to raise emotionally fluent and intelligent men. I wanted them to know that ALL of their emotions are ok, normal, and safe. I always tell them “It’s ok to feel what you feel but be wise in your behavior choices”. This statement happens frequently in my home.
I’m often telling my 6-year-old “It’s ok to be mad, but not ok to hit/choke/kick your brother”. I encourage my kiddos to talk about their emotions and the triggers to their emotions. Sometimes I’m the trigger to their anger and I have to be ok with this. I try to validate all of their emotions so that they receive reinforcement that the emotional response is normal and valid.
When you think about our 4 basic emotions: happy, mad, sad, scared, 75% of them are negative. What messages did you receive about these emotions when you were growing up and/or other significant relationships?
Think for a minute about how you felt the last time you experienced each of these emotions. Did you share your experience with anyone? Did you try to avoid the feelings? What did you do to cope with the feelings? I would encourage you to practice identifying your emotions (from the list above) and sharing them with at least 1 person.
If you don’t know where to start, you can start with filling in the blanks “I feel ___________, when ________________”. (I feel happy when my kids hug me). If you want to go a little deeper, you can use the statement above and talk about the best part of your day and then the worst part of your day. If you’re a parent or caregiver, I would challenge you to teach your kiddos to unpack the emotions.
Let’s stop this “pack it away” mentality and start teaching kids to be fluent in emotions.
This post was written by Minon Maier – LMFT
