What am I feeling and who can I tell?

Dear EQuipped Leaders,

What are you feeling today? Can you name it? Do you dare claim it? Wrap your arm around it and welcome it in?

Whatever you’re feeling is okay. No feelings are bad or selfish or wrong. They just are. Neither good nor bad.

There are behaviors that are destructive and not okay. But all feelings are okay.

And, ironically, the more space we make for ourselves and our children to feel their feelings, the sooner they usually feel through them and then get to solutions themselves about what they need. But if we restrict those feelings, in ourselves and in our children, that’s when things start coming out sideways. That’s when we start hurting others because we don’t realize we’re hurting ourselves.

Ugh. Self-awareness is so healthy and so annoying. Sometimes I just have to roll my eyes to handle it.

I’m getting a lot better at feeling my feelings and learning language for what I’m feeling. I’m also learning to view my feelings as information about how to get my needs met instead of judgements on my character. This has been the most helpful shift because I can stay with my feelings longer and get curious instead of furious at them. I’m trying to be kinder to myself and take note of what I’m already doing well, not just where I still need to grow.

What I’m finding is hard for me these days is telling other people what’s going on for me. I don’t want to tell people what I’m feeling because it’s so vulnerable. It feels like pulling down my collar, turning my head to the side, and exposing my neck. And hoping for this vulnerable part of me to be met with tenderness, a gentle touch, a safe and loving kiss. And it’s like wanting that so badly but expecting a kick to the neck instead. And then judging myself for exposing my neck in the first place. So I just don’t.

The soft parts of me are wonderful. I know that. But when I’ve been hurt for showing them over and over, it can be easy to start believing that my vulnerability is the problem. It is difficult for me to remember that the pain I fear has already happened. The kicks to the neck already happened. What I’m afraid of has already happened. Me exposing my neck was never the problem. But it’s hard to unlearn that instinct to protect and hide. To cover my neck with my hand, curl over, and go on, unseen.

So for all my talk about feeling feelings and communicating them effectively. Please know, I feel viscerally how hard this actually is. I often judge myself as emotionally immature now for struggling to communicate what I’m feeling to others, but I learned to hide my emotions to survive. That was a good adaptation for me as a kid. I don’t have to keep judging myself for it. Just because my heart was broken then doesn’t mean I have to keep breaking my own heart now by judging myself.

I want to use all this EQ knowledge to better understand and empathize with myself. Not to sharpen the tools I use to judge myself with more credible terminology. I have a head AND a heart for a reason.

So whatever I’m feeling is okay. And I can accept it and offer myself the compassion I need. I can also reach out to safe people in my life who have the capacity to meet my vulnerability with kindness and tell them the truth about what I’m feeling.

And I can be bad at this. Because it’s new for me. And scary.

Where does this land for you?

Who can you share your true feelings with?

How do you view your own vulnerability?

I’m trying to remember that I’m not bad, I’m human. And I can feel and fumble and still be good.

The unshakable goodness within me honors the unshakable goodness within you.

Thank you for being here, for showing up. That’s brave and hard in and of itself.

Stay Soft, Elizabeth