Permission to feel

For many of us, there is little space (or want) in our lives to truly grieve. But then when you add to that, that it is actually mourning a part of a loss, or a loss that has only happened in our minds… this is called Anticipatory Grief. Often we, as caregivers, are still busy being the support for the family, for ourselves and our rare child(ren). We want to be strong, yet we can misinterpret strength for hiding sadness… which can actually be an unnecessary addition to our collective pain.

This can lead to not grieving fully, unconsciously invalidated our grief or even creating a chasm between our feelings and our intellect, ignoring or resisting our waves of emotion… leading us to refusing to feel. We can tell ourselves “my feelings aren’t valid” and, from that place, we can end up suppressing them. The fragmentation we can cause of these parts in ourselves is a powerful lesson. Our hearts need attention, but our minds are preoccupied.

Giving ourselves permission to feel requires patience, compassion, emotional intelligence, and courage. We live in an age where we do all we can to avoid suffering, and it will take time to develop the skill. So, in order to help yourselves feel our feelings and process our emotions, we get to take baby steps to move into it.

There are six parts to giving ourselves permission to feel.

First, we Stop…

then we Label the Feeling…

after that, we Notice the Emotion in the Body…

we then Spot the Storyline…

Write a New Storyline…

and finally, Create Space for Feeling.

Most of us develop coping mechanisms for when emotions are present. We opt for distractions, but when giving permission, the first step is to pause, breathe, and be present.

Next, we take a moment to label the emotion. You can use an emotion wheel… and you might be surprised to feel unsure what you actually feel! But that’s okay. Be as curious as possible.

The third step redirects us from our ‘thinking’ mind to being present to the feeling, nurturing it, or soothing it. There is a time and a place to engage the rational mind and work through issues, but the best thing to do is to lean into the feeling sense inside ourselves. It’s amazing how the mind quietens almost immediately after feeling an emotion fully. It’s as if the energy is misplaced, and once released, the mental loops stop.

Once we have engaged with it in our body, we want to spot our storyline. The major cause of suppression is convincing ourselves we’re not supposed to feel them. A lot of these mechanisms stretch back to childhood. We may have developed ways to hide our true feelings in an attempt to be loved, or learned that certain emotions, such as anger, are wrong.

This gives insight into the depth of work involved. It’s not an easy process, and it takes time. But by spotting the storyline, you gain insight into how your mind minimizes your emotions.

After identifying it, we get to write a new one! The purpose of this new storyline is to validate. It can help to picture your inner-child when you do this. How would you talk to the younger version of you, if they were experiencing what you were experiencing? How would you reassure them it’s okay to feel?

And then, lastly, we create space to feel. This can be scary, at times, but if you approach it with a mindset of compassion, curiosity and acceptance, we can really open that space within ourselves.

Humans are incredibly complex emotional beings. We’re able to experience multiple emotions at a time, and even feel emotions towards emotions. Insight around different emotions builds with practice and awareness. And learning to create the space to direct empathy to yourself (even if it’s a visual of you sitting in front of you), can help you to learn how to do this.

Beginning this practice now allows us to be with the emotions we are feeling. And as we practice creating that space, we will have a greater ability in the future to confront, recover, re-integrate, and rebuild trust in feeling. We all need this level of courage to breakdown in grief, anticipatory or not… This ‘developed’ courage, allows us to be brave enough to feel when we need to.

Walking it with you,

Pamela