How to Navigate Through Uncomfortable Feelings

I am absolutely terrible at math. After hitting my peak while learning about multiplication tables in 3rd grade, it was a pretty steady decline towards a land of confusion, frustration and not knowing how the fuck to find what “X” is. So, it may come as a surprise that when I discuss with my clients how to work through the range of feelings, they are experiencing that are uncomfortable (no feelings are “bad,” more on that later), I use some terminology from my middle school math days. Maybe there was a benefit to math classes for this therapist after all. 

The math term that I like to use is called The Order of Operations. 

Remember that Acronym, PEMDAS? Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (Parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction). This Order of Operations helped create a blueprint for how to work through the math problem in the correct order. The issue that many of us adults have when it comes to how we relate to what we are feeling however, is that we were not taught in school how to respond to or even think about our feelings accurately or appropriately. Without any formal education on this, most of what we learn comes from our family, friends, and whatever combination of social media, TV, movies and sources from the internet model for us. This leads many of us to have not only an inaccurate model of what to do with what we feel but oftentimes reinforces ideas that are absolutely the opposite of what is typically helpful.  

The vast majority of how we learn to respond to our feelings comes from the family we grow up in and the culture that we are surrounded by. Even the most emotionally aware and considerate parents will at times not meet the emotional needs of their kids, lash out in frustration and anger, or be disconnected. But if that was the majority of your experience from your parents in childhood, it likely created some unhelpful ways to respond to what you feel as an adult. 

So for many, we want to get rid of these feelings and push them away. We may distract ourselves by watching TV, scrolling through social media, exercising, drinking, meditating, praying, trying to think positive thoughts, or literally any other action to try to shift what we are feeling. But it doesn’t work. If we try to avoid the feeling and skip to feeling better, we don’t. So, let’s try a practice that I like to call: 

The Emotional Order of Operations

Step One- Identify the Feeling

Do you know what you are feeling? Many of us don’t. Or if we do, it isn’t very descriptive. We use a lot of the same words that we learned as kids- mad, sad, stressed, upset, happy, calm. So, one of the first things I like to do is do a quick Google search of an emotional vocabulary. This will help you be more specific of what you are experiencing. For example, what does it feel like for you to be concerned versus worried? Scared versus anxious? Frustrated versus irate? Now see if you can notice what this feeling feels like in your body. Does it feel like a weight on your chest? A pressure in your head, or butterflies in your stomach? You might feel nothing, just notice that. 

Step Two- Make Space for the Feeling

You don’t have to do anything about this feeling right now. Resist the urge to push it away or label it as bad. Work towards sitting with this and understanding it more. In practical terms, take some time to observe the feeling with curiosity. Does it stay in one place, or move around? Does it have a temperature? How big is it? What color does it feel like? Take some time to just observe it. Imagine your breath is going into and out of this feeling. Just breathe like that for a minute or two. Then, as weird as this may sound, internally ask the feeling what it wants you to know in this moment, or what it is trying to tell you. 

The reason you do this, and why no feelings are bad, is they all serve some purpose for us. We might feel guilty when we have done something to hurt someone or have stepped out of our values, and guilt is there to bring us back towards what we care about or who we want to be. Anxiety or fear is there to alert us to danger and protect us from repeating mistakes or being harmed in some way. Shame works to make sure that we are being our best or are able to be accepted by others. Grief reminds us of something or someone important that we have lost. Sadness is necessary for us to be able to have the experience of contentment or happiness, because without one we would not be able to fully experience the other. 

Step Three- Share Appreciation

Once you are able to know what you are feeling and what purpose this likely serves, let this feeling know that you appreciate the intention that it has. You don’t have to like how it feels, but we can appreciate the intention of what it is trying to accomplish to remind us of. 

Step Four- Bring Yourself Back

Take some time now to do some gentle movements with your body. Take a few deep breaths. Look around the room and notice what you see, what you can touch, what you can hear. Bring yourself back into this moment. 

Step Five- Now Time to Cope

Now is a great time to do things that make you feel better, and now that the feeling has been acknowledged, these things may actually work so much better. Think about how good it feels to come back home after a successful day at work or a good workout and relax and watch a movie. This is so different from avoiding what you are feeling by watching a movie and distracting yourself. Now that you have done the mental workout of the other four steps, whatever you want to do to cope and feel better will likely have a much stronger impact on you and actually will feel good. It’s the same behavior, but in a different order. 

I hope that you have found this helpful and are able to use this next time you are feeling anything that is difficult. You are meant to have these feelings;

it’s part of what it means to be human. This practice can take time, so give yourself kindness and patience as well.