Update Your Beliefs About Feelings
updating your beliefs about feelings EXERCISE
How you view feelings may be a significant barrier to you having greater emotional capacity. Many of us have been trained to look at feelings as bad, wrong, unimportant, unnecessary, unproductive.
Some of us think they get in the way. Maybe they are a sign of weakness or are feminine and men shouldn’t have them. Some of us think feelings will cause us to be out of control or cause trouble, and leave you feeling bad about yourself.
There are so many negative beliefs about feelings, which can get in the way of paying attention to them and being able to regulate and use them to help us know ourselves better.
Please take out a journal, sheet of paper or open a note on your phone or computer and reflect on the following two prompts:
Write down all the beliefs you have about feelings and emotions. Did any of the examples above resonate? Write those down. Any others? Write as many of the thoughts and ideas that come to your mind when you think about feelings.
What gets in the way of you considering seeing them differently? Just write down whatever comes to you minds as you hear my invitation to consider that feelings are valuable sources of information. They might have something to teach you about yourself. That investing time and energy in understanding and naming them might help you feel better. What comes up for you as you consider taking this new point of view? Write it all down. Just notice it.
Considering the possibility of seeing your feelings and the feelings of others as valuable is the first step to changing your relationship to them.