Episode 125: Acknowledging Feelings When They Don’t Seem Appropriate
In today’s episode, continuing the deep dive into feelings. Today, I am going to explore what to do when your feelings just don’t seem appropriate.
When my mom told me she wouldn’t be visiting for Easter this year – choosing to visit a friend instead – I experienced a flood of emotions.
I immediately felt disappointed and sad.
Easter isn’t a big deal in our family – we don’t even go to church – but I was still looking forward to seeing her. I was bummed.
And then my Monger started sounding off: “What’s the big deal? She’s allowed to go to visit her friend, and it isn’t like you are a deeply religious family or anything. You are so uptight and rigid! This shouldn’t make you sad.”
The rest of the day, when I would feel sad or disappointed, the voice of the Monger would swoop in and tell me that my feelings were irrational and I would feel terrible about myself.
But here is the thing: feelings happen. It doesn’t matter if the feelings make sense or not. You are still having them, and that is more than okay, no matter what your Monger is telling you.
Today, we are continuing this month’s deep dive into the F word. In episode 119, I introduced the topic of Acknowledging your feelings as a key part of reducing anxiety, and last week, I addressed 2 of the fears we have about feelings. Today, I am going to explore what to do when your feelings just don’t seem appropriate.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
What happens when we don’t give ourselves permission to feel and confuse the natural response of acknowledging our feelings with demanding a behavior change.
How it is a myth that if we feel sad that means we have to take action on that feeling
Why the idea of”‘changing our thoughts” or “fixing our mindsets” never works
How when we have High Functioning Anxiety we learn to compartmentalize those feelings, putting them in a box deep inside, never seeing them again
Research and resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
My mom won't be here for Easter this year. She's visiting a friend instead. This shouldn't make me sad. I mean, Easter isn't a big deal in our family. We don't even go to church, but regardless I told my husband, I'm just sad that she isn't going to be here for Easter. I mean, I know that's just silly. My husband interrupted me and said, "So what if it doesn't make sense? That's how you're feeling."
It does drive me crazy when he uses my own words of advice against me. But this time, it was exactly what I needed to hear. I took a huge exhale and smiled for the first time that day.
You're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.
After my mom announced that she was headed to visit a friend for Easter, I immediately felt disappointed and sad. And then my Monger stepped in. "I mean, what's the big deal she's allowed to go to visit her friend. It isn't like you're a deeply religious family. You're just so uptight and rigid."
My Monger was off to the races calling me too sensitive, too rigid, too traditionalistic on and on and on the rest of the day. When I would feel sad or disappointed, she would swoop in. I admit it; even now, I'm a little embarrassed to share this story with you. My Monger is still hammering me for being too sensitive, but here's the thing.
And this is what I want to explore on today's episode feelings happen. As my husband said, it doesn't matter if it makes sense or not. It's a feeling. Today, we're continuing our deep dive into the F-word. I talk about acknowledging your feelings as a key part of reducing anxiety. And in episode 119, I introduced the topic last week.
I address two of the fears we have about feelings. And today, I want to dive deeper into this idea of feelings when they just don't seem appropriate. When we have high functioning anxiety, we learn to compartmentalize those feelings, to put them in a box deep inside, and never see them again. As I said last week, not only have you buried your feelings, but you take a lot of pride in the fact that you can control your feelings, that you don't let your feelings run amuck, like those needy emotional people who can't control themselves.
Yep. Again, that's a common refrain of our BFS. We do it better because we can control our emotions. Or so we think, but in reality, those feelings come out via our anxiety, anger, frustration, and passive-aggressiveness. The truth is it's not about the feeling. The feeling is a natural response. My sadness and disappointment about mom not being here for Easter is just that it's a natural physiological response.
The problem is that in our society and in our high functioning anxiety brains, we've linked that feeling too. If I feel sad, that means I have to take action on that feeling. That is a myth. We do not have to take action on our feelings. All we have to do is acknowledge they're there and soften it. I can acknowledge the sadness and give my mom a big hug and be thrilled for her to go visit her friend.
Both can be true just because I'll be disappointed that my mom won't be here for Easter. It doesn't mean that anything about her Easter plans needs to change or that she needs to feel bad for going to visit her friend, or that I need to feel shame for feeling sad and discipline. This is the part we get mixed up.
We mistakenly believe that if we acknowledge the sadness, then we need to fix it. We need to do something to not feel sad anymore. Nope. Sadness is a natural response, and when we can acknowledge it and soften into it, we can get to the other side so much faster. Here's what we tend to do. And definitely what I would have done in the past.
My mom announces she's not going to be here for Easter. I feel sad and disappointed and then tell myself to get over it. As the days and weeks go along, I keep telling myself to get over it. Don't be so sensitive. She's a grown woman who can make her own choices, blah, blah, blah. Then right before Easter, she's talking about her trip, and I say something passive-aggressive, like, "Must be nice to be traveling over the holiday. We'll certainly miss you as we color eggs." Or maybe I might even be more indirect and just complain to my husband over and over and over again about how my mom is ditching me for Easter. And it becomes this very big deal. When in reality, it's not. Often I will talk about having a 10 reaction to a two situations when our Mongers are running the show, and we aren't acknowledging our feelings. We will take a benign situation and blow it up to be huge.
So the situation with my mom goes from being simply disappointed to questioning whether she really loves me at all. This is what happens when we don't give ourselves permission to feel when we confuse the natural response of acknowledging our feelings with demanding a behavior. Okay. So what if this is a situation where I do have a response?
What if instead of Easter, which is a minor holiday for my family, it's Christmas, which is a major holiday for my family. What if my mom decided she wasn't going to do Christmas? Again, I would acknowledge the feelings, sadness, disappointment, anger, and confusion. Then, I could step back and react after acknowledging those feelings.
I might decide to talk to mom and hear her thinking behind ditching Christmas. Since I had given myself permission to feel the sadness, disappointment, anger, and confusion, I can relatively calmly listen to her side of the story. And we can figure out a way around it. Maybe she wants to ditch Christmas because she feels unappreciated, or it's too much. Or she just wants to go somewhere warm. Whatever the reason, when we can allow our emotions and recognize that our emotions don't dictate our behavior, we can have a much calmer discussion. The power of acknowledging our emotions is why the idea of changing your thoughts or fixing your mindset never works because all day Sunday, I was trying to change my thoughts and fix my mindset.
I kept telling myself to be grateful for all the years. I had Easter with my mom to give her a break. She can do whatever she wants, and it's just a thought that I want to spend Easter with her. None of those mindset ideas worked until I acknowledged my feelings until that moment in the car when my husband said, so what I hadn't softened into anything.
I was so busy trying to unsuccessfully change my mindset. Once, he reminded me, I had permission to feel and that it wasn't linked to my actions or behavior. I was able to see the whole situation differently. I didn't have to convince myself that I was wrong or that mom was right. Both could be true. I could be sad.
She could go to California, and the world could keep turning grudges drama. Passive aggressiveness is caused by shaming ourselves for our feelings, trying to jump too quickly into changing our mindset, or thinking that having an emotion means we get to react to it. Recently I was watching the TV show Tommy, which is about the first female LAPD chief.
At one point, Tommy's daughter confronts her and says, there's always going to be a part of me that wishes my life was more important than the 4 million citizens you keep safe. And I know their lives are more important, but as your daughter, I wish you put me first, and I feel selfish and embarrassed saying that, but there it is.
And Tommy, her mom, who's played by Eddie Falco, smiled and hugged her and said, thank you so much for saying that. Honestly, I appreciate you sharing it. I loved the scene because the daughter shared all the messiness of feelings, the irrationality, the embarrassment, and her mom just listened. She didn't get defensive.
She didn't start drama or get petty. They both recognize that having a feeling does not mean there needs to be an action or reaction. Sometimes it's just about acknowledging the feeling in all its messiness. I think one of the things we hate about feelings is. They're out of control. They're a major unknown.
So my challenge to you is to own that own, that they're messy and scary. We spend way too much of our time running from them. And all that is doing is causing anxiety. So let's try it a different way. Let's lean into those biological responses rather than futilely pretending they just don't exist.
Helping people with High Functioning Anxiety is a personal mission for me. I have a special place in my heart for this struggle because it’s both something I dealt with unknowingly for years, and because it silently affects so many people who think this is just how it is.
Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.
I have been doing this work for over 20 years and Coach in Your Pocket is the most effective and most life-changing work I have ever done. My clients are consistently blown away by how these daily check-ins combined with the monthly face-to-face video meetings create slow, lasting changes that reprogram their High Functioning Anxiety tendencies over time.
Over the course of the three-month program, we meet once a month for a face-to-face session via a secure video chat, and then throughout the entire three months, you have access to me anytime you are feeling anxious, having a Monger attack, celebrating a win, or just need to check-in, and I will respond to you during my office hours (Monday through Friday, 9 am - 6 pm EST).