Your Right to Feel

In order to embrace our right to feel, we first must understand exactly what comprises a feeling and an emotion. Emotions are neurological reactions, both physical and instinctive, to an emotional stimulus. Emotions prompt our body to physically react to perceived threats, pain, comforts and rewards. Emotions can be objectively measured and felt (eg. heart rate, brain activity, sweat production etc.).

To understand emotions further, let’s use the example of a chance meeting with a bear while on a hike. For most people, this external stimulus would cause the emotion of fear and thus would alert the body of the immediate danger and would attempt to ensure the survival of self. When our brain detects danger, it stimulates the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight mode). You would likely feel your heart pounding, shallow breathing, increased sensation in your limbs (weak or shaky legs), and your pupils would be dilated. While emotions can be intense, they are temporary, and we are meant to stabilize back to the parasympathetic nervous system (rest-and-digest mode) immediately after the danger has passed. In fact, animals naturally shake to release tension after a life threatening event, therefore resetting their nervous setting.

But here is where it gets tricky.

Unlike animals, humans are conscious beings, and therefore have the ability to place meaning onto our experiences, which makes it a lot more difficult to allow the emotion to pass. We end up holding onto our past emotions and feelings, and allow them to unconsciously control our lives.

Feelings, on the other hand, are the meaning prescribed to our physical reactions and alert us to anticipated danger. They are triggered by emotions BUT are consciously shaped by our thoughts, beliefs, and narratives (experiences). Essentially, feelings are subjective (based on our perspective), meaning that two people could experience the exact same emotional response but have completely different feelings about the situation (neither rightnor wrong).

Let’s take the example of seeing a bear at the zoo behind bars. One person’s experience could be curiosity or admiration as they experience something new, while another person might experience bitterness at the caging of animals. Unlike emotions, feelings are the long term survival of self (both our body and our minds). Because we are conscious beings, we now also have to navigate the psychological threat of death to our ‘Ego’.

Anything that causes harm to our ‘Ego’ or our sense of ‘Self’ will trigger an emotional response.

Where we run into complication, is when we lose the ability to move through the emotion (reset the nervous system) because of our attachment to our feelings, to our sense of ‘Self’. When we look at consciousness, we are observing that the ‘Self’ is simply an observer of our environment, including our emotions and thoughts (our minds), and is therefore separate. If we are conscious of this separateness, we can approach our emotions simply as important tools to navigate our environment and once the emotional reaction has faded, we can allow ourselves to let go of that experience and move back into the parasympathetic nervous system (our resting state). However, because of our unconscious attachment to our ‘Ego’ (not being able to separate our thoughts and emotions from who we are), we add on meaning to these physical reactions, creating feelings, which can leave lasting impressions on our life, especially when operating out of fear.

Where then does our ‘right to feel’ land in all of this?

We know that emotions are important to help us understand our physical environment. Contrary to popular belief, emotions are neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’.

Anger, for example, can be destructive when we use it to hurt others, but it can be good when it prompts us to move away from the people or experiences that cause us pain.
Conversely joy can be a beautiful emotion when shared with loved ones, but can be horrifying when at the expense of someone else’s pain. Notice the common factor?

The emotion itself is neutral. What changes is the experience, influenced by the meaning and context that we place on that emotion. So when we get stuck in an intense feeling (eg. anxiety, worthlessness, bitterness), the feeling can negatively impact how we move through our life (eg. keep us paralyzed out of fear, hold us back from our dreams, be the toxic poison in an otherwise healthy relationship).

So how do we navigate our ‘right to feel’ without allowing our feelings to take over our lives?

We learn to move through them; to feel them, to learn from them, and to simply just let them go. But letting go isn’t all that easy, take grief as an example. There are said to be 7 stages of grief and before we move on to the last stage, acceptance, we must pass through the previous 6 stages. Imagine all feelings as having these steps to move through.

This is the work, to allow ourselves to feel and then to simply accept and let go.

Exercise for moving through our feelings:

Notice how you feel both physically and emotionally.
Feel into the physical reaction of the body. When we are working out of the fight-or-flight mode, our body will be flooded with emotion and we will experience the sympathetic nervous system’s responses (heart rate increase, tense muscles, shortened breath).
Allow your body to come to a place of rest, rather than reaction. You may choose to do conscious breath work to slow down the reaction, but you could also begin to explore the ways in which you bring yourself out of this intense state of emotion (eg. going for a walk, listening to music, taking a shower) but you MUST make sure that you do not bring the situation to mind.
Now that you have calmed your body, bring conscious awareness to the original feeling
Name the feeling. This allows you to bridge a gap between your thoughts and feelings (“I am this” to “I am feeling this”). This ultimately gives you power over the feeling and is similar to the perspective of “life is happening to me” or “life is happening for me”.
Revisit the emotion behind the feeling and determine the external circumstance that led to the reaction.
See this experience as either an opportunity to let go or an opportunity to take action. Depending on the situation, either may be appropriate, but always make sure that you are acting from a place of authenticity and separateness of ‘Self’. You won’t move through the emotion if it doesn’t come from a place of consciousness.
Continue on with the rest of your day now that you have moved through the emotion. The next time the feeling appears, just simply take a couple of deep breaths and allow yourself space to move through it. Repeat this sequence of steps if necessary.

Journalling prompts and exercises:

Notice if there is a pattern of feelings (similar feelings showing up in a multitude of circumstances). In yoga we refer to this as our Samskara. It is an impression from our past, an emotional bruise, that we are resistant to experience again. To deal with the discomfort of the emotion, we push the pain deep down within us and try to avoid any event or situation that might cause us to revisit the past emotion (eg. After a breakup, we learn how to disconnect from love so that we never get hurt again). The yogis believe that it is our life’s calling to break our Samskaras, our karmic contracts. When we are able to recognize them and work through the feelings, we are able to move closer to Enlightenment, essentially closer to ‘True Self’. In this way, we may notice how life continually challenges us to grow. No matter how hard we try to avoid painful experiences, life has a funny way of bringing our buried Samskara to the surface, giving us an opportunity to release the trapped emotion.

Write down any emotions or feelings that have been recurring throughout your life
Write down a timeline of where you have seen this same emotion (eg. Worhtlessness and the idea that “I’m not good enough”)
Do you notice a pattern?
Is there a way that you could break that pattern?

2. In yoga, we use Sankalpa, a statement of complete truth, to help us work through our Samskaras. That we are able to still feel into the Samskara (karmic cycle), but we are also able to remind ourselves of our true conscious ‘Self’. This often looks like an “I Am” Statement. Start to considered what you TRULY believe about yourself so that when you come up against a Samskara you have a tool to move through the patterned belief based on feelings (eg. Even in the moments where you feel ‘not enough’, you call upon your Sankalpa ‘I Am Enough’ to remind yourself that you might not be perfect but you can certainly shine a light for someone).

- Start to consider what your truthful “I Am” Statement might be.

3. Thought/Emotion Garden: This is a good example of how a passing emotion can become the epicentre of your life.

Notice what ‘seeds’ of thought you are planting in your garden and write them down.
Every time that revisit a thought, imagine that you are watering and nurturing that thought to grow.
How many ‘thought plants’ are you growing in your garden that are causing you pain or suffering?
How can you choose to let that thought/emotion pass through to take away the power it has over your life?

4. When you get resistant, get curious. When we get emotionally reactive, it is because something has bruised our ego (identity), and often holds truth that we are not willing to see. Our need to fight against this outside force, is trying to protect the part of us that feels vulnerable.

How often do you find yourself trying to protect and defend the vulnerable parts of you?
Is there a bruise in that space from past interactions that present ones are aggravating?
Can you find the space to not only move through the present hurt but also the past pain?

5. If this previous journaling activity felt challenging, change the perspective to operating out of love versus out of fear. Fear doesn’t want to feelitself, it is actually afraid of itself. So when we feel fear at our identity being attacked, we try to dispel that fear by reacting (either fight-or-flight).

When you feel the need to react, pause and get quiet, and notice what is being triggered.
If there is no truth to the situation, allow for yourself to move through it without attachment.
If there is truth to the situation, offer compassion for yourself as you work through the bruised ego to show up more fully.
Eg 1. When someone calls you ugly, you understand that this has nothing to do with you, and is in fact the other person working through their own emotional attachments. We see this often in resentment. When someone is feeling resentment, instead of leaning into their own emotion, they try to put the blame on something outside of themselves. In reality, resentment is a mirror that you don’t honour yourself or you need to set a boundary. It has nothing to do with others.
Eg 2. When someone calls you flaky, you may consider that you have bailed on plans in the past and instead of getting reactive, you choose to thank them for showing you where you are not showing up to your potential and you make it a goal to be more responsible and diligent.