Last week I sat down on my couch and let myself cry. My oldest son had just left for New Mexico where he’s going to be living for the next six months as a wildland firefighter. Recognizing that I was sad and giving myself time and space to really feel this sadness was huge for me.

I haven’t always allowed myself to feel any strong emotions like sadness. I wasn’t raised to be emotionally intelligent about my own feelings, instead I learned to be hypervigilant of other people’s emotions. Between my upbringing, confusing societal messages, and some really ineffective counseling I received for 20 years (more about this in my next blog), my emotions used to terrify me, so I ran from them – both figuratively and literally, as a long-distance runner.

Trying to block out my emotions, especially the uncomfortable ones, significantly impacted my anxiety, causing my anxiety to worsen exponentially. And notice I’m using the word “trying,” because we can’t bypass our emotions. We can’t sidestep them, hide from them, dodge them, or evade them – maybe we can temporarily but not for the long run. Pushing down our emotions causes them to erupt in other ways and for me that was anxiety. Our emotions will be there right where we left them, until we come back for them and process them.

I used to feel that showing any emotion was a weakness. Feeling and showing my true emotions made me feel vulnerable – like I was emotionally naked. The thought of showing anyone my true feelings left me paralyzed with fear. Even worse, I was terrified of feeling my own emotions, but avoiding them and distracting myself from them was giving me anxiety.

“The long-term pain suffered by suppressing emotions is far greater than the short-term pain of confronting them.” – Sam Owen

Emotions get a bad rap in our culture. We’re taught to be ashamed of any feelings or emotions that are deemed negative or unpleasant. There seems to be a set narrative of how we “should” and “shouldn’t” feel and this script hurts so many people, especially those of us with anxiety or any other mental health issue. 

Just recently I saw an Instagram reel where a woman shared a video of herself crying. In her caption she explained it away by saying that she was tired in the video which made her more emotional. Being tired lowers our defenses, essentially our walls that are blocking out our feelings for sure, but being emotional isn’t just an overreaction because we’re exhausted though. There are moments when our strong emotions surface that we can’t hold back anymore and that is normal.

Feel to Heal

Our emotions hold power and steer us in the direction of our soul. They are whispers, songs, and shouts from our souls indicating when something is in alignment with us and when a boundary has been crossed. Acknowledging our emotions and processing them allows us to heed these messages from our souls.

They guide us to make choices that are in our best interest for our personal growth. It's through our emotions that we live life fully. Being human means that we feel and that includes the full spectrum of emotions. Experiencing all of life’s emotions is a gift.

“This distrust and confusion around your emotions is what feeds anxiety, so to heal anxiety you need clarity surrounding your true feelings.” – Tricia Easter, from my book Bold Trust – 6 Steps to Unravel the Long-Term Effects of Gaslighting, Unapologetically Trust Yourself, and Heal Anxiety

Giving myself permission to feel however exhilarating or awful my emotions are has changed the trajectory of my mental health. I learned that it is completely normal to feel the highest highs and the lowest lows of emotions - from suffocating sadness to smoke coming out of my ears anger to heart-bursting joy. All of these feelings are a part of life.

Do I want to feel sad? No! Do I want to feel angry? Hell no! But the truth is that sometimes I do and that’s normal. Avoiding these emotions creates distrust in our bodies, spurring anxiety. Owning my emotions and trusting them signals that I am safe to feel freely, building trust in my body and mind. Accepting and processing all my emotions has dramatically healed anxiety for me.

Permission to Feel

There is an outdated belief that we should strive to control our emotions. This stems from fear that if we fully step into our emotions and let ourselves feel that these emotions will overrun our lives. However, my experience with healing anxiety has taught me the exact opposite.

“When we name an emotion or experience, it doesn’t give that emotion or experience more power, it gives US more power.” – Brené Brown

Trying to control our feelings and emotions is futile. We feel what we feel. Period. Attempting to control our emotions sets the stage for these emotions to control us. By not being fully present with our emotions, we can’t process them, and unprocessed emotions get stuck in our bodies. Stuck emotions will eventually surface in other ways, such as anxiety or other health issues.

Shutting down our emotions in an attempt to control them also closes off our hearts, compounding anxiety. My blog Open Hearts, Open Minds shares why keeping our hearts and minds open is necessary to heal anxiety. Allowing our emotions to flow and our hearts to be open promotes deep inner healing so that we feel safe to shine our light.

Giving ourselves permission to feel for as long as we need to feel is what we must do to process our emotions. Sitting with our emotions isn’t always fun with the stronger more uncomfortable emotions, but it’s necessary. It can feel overwhelming, as if some of these emotions will last forever, but they don’t. You have my word; they will eventually move on.

The one thing we can control is our response to our emotions. Unprocessed emotions cause reactions, whereas processing our emotions gives us pause to choose our actions (or inactions).

Emotional Healing

Before my son left, we talked a lot about his feelings about his upcoming job assignment. He was feeling both excited and scared. Excited about living someplace new in addition to learning a new aspect of firefighting, but also scared about failing and being homesick.

One of the best and, at the same time, hardest things for me as a mom of children who are adults and teenagers is just listening to them to share their difficult feelings. I feel honored that they talk to me and feel safe talking about their emotions. Just my listening to my son, I believe, helps him to validate and process his emotions so that he knows it’s ok to feel. Having a chance to talk about his feelings hopefully helps to take the edge off so that his emotions don’t feel overwhelming.

As his mother, it’s hard to see him feeling scared and there’s a part of me that wants to “fix it” for him. However, I know that interjecting myself and trying to “fix” it would rob him of the opportunity to learn to trust himself.

I’m already missing him, but I fully support his dreams and hope he has a wonderful time out in New Mexico. I’m so proud of him for following his own path and listening to the callings of his soul. And I’ll continue to listen to him, encouraging him to talk about his emotions while I embrace mine.

Look for my book Bold Trust – 6 Steps to Unravel the Long-Term Effects of Gaslighting, Unapologetically Trust Yourself, and Heal Anxiety which will be available this spring/summer.