Your feelings are always valid - Your reactions to them might not be

3 min read

Do you ever react to an emotion in a way that seems way out of proportion, and you regret it afterwards? You are not alone with this, but it can take a toll on friendships, relationships, or simply your relationship to yourself.

Understanding how to react to your feelings in a healthy way is key to a healthy relationship, with yourself and others, for a more balanced and happy life.

We all feel. Different things make us feel different emotions. What makes me sad, might not have the same effect on you, and vice versa! We all react in different ways, depending on our character, our childhood, our past in general, you get the picture. The important thing to note is, if something makes you feel angry/sad/jealous or whatever else, you are not wrong for feeling that way.

Your feelings are never wrong, there is a reason you feel that way and you can’t and shouldn’t try to change that. However, (and this is the point most people like to sweep under the carpet, me included) your reactions to these feelings are 100% under your control.

I know, taking responsibility for our actions - UGH.

But this is where our power lies.

Don’t try not to feel by suppressing your emotions. This never works (trust me). Instead, practice checking in with yourself.

A common situation might be the following: your partner does something that triggers you to feel very jealous. Instead of reacting in whatever way you usually would (shut down, blame them, be passive-aggressive,...), pause and try to feel the emotion in your body.

We are programmed to think of certain emotions as “good” and others as “bad”. Or as “safe” and “not safe” to experience. But the big misconception is, there are no “good” or “bad” emotions. It is all just energy passing through your body and by being so scared of feeling certain emotions, we suppress the flow of that energy, and unconsciously react to situations in ways we learned/ were programmed years ago.

Jealousy is not bad, it is part of the human experience. Anger is not bad, neither is sadness, happiness, pity, frustration, love,... You get what I mean.

Try to get curious about your emotions. How does it feel? Where in your body is it mainly present? Maybe that might look like this:

“Wow. I feel really jealous right now. I feel the jealousy as a tightness building up in my chest.”

By bringing awareness to your emotion, you are no longer on autopilot. Now there is a better chance for you to reprogram yourself to no longer react in the same patterns, and instead respond from a conscious point of view.

“What part of me feels threatened right now? What am I afraid of? How do I want to go about this?”

It takes time and practice, but with each time you will learn more about yourself. Now you will be in a position to choose- do you want to remove yourself from the situation? Voice your feelings? Take action? Whatever it might be, you are liberating yourself from your own unconscious programming and can start living your life more consciously.