As a therapist I get asked this question sometimes. When I do, it tells me something important about the person asking. If you were to ask me this question one of the things it could indicate is that you have difficulty sitting with and feeling your feelings. Asking why you should feel your feelings then definitely becomes a fair question to ask. You need good justification to take the risk of going into uncharted and uncomfortable emotional territory.
Not wanting to feel your feelings is at the most basic and general level a defense mechanism. In other words, it’s a way we all try to protect and keep ourselves safe, and to continue to function in the world as best we can. Perhaps your feelings easily overwhelm you, and so you don’t want to feel them. Perhaps you feel out of control when you feel your feelings, and engage in destructive patterns of behavior that you later regret. Perhaps you have a history of trauma so feeling your feelings is like a survival experience of life and death, or reliving your trauma. Perhaps you grew up in a family where people minimized, dismissed, invalidated, criticized, judged, or shamed your feelings and expression of them, so you learned to do the same.
Not feeling your feelings can work for a period of time as a way to cope and keep things at bay. Typically, people reach some point in their life where this tactic no longer works. You outgrow it, or your life does, and you’re being called to a new way of being and living. Either you heed the calling, or you don’t. I like to remind my patients that this is your life, so of course you can live it however you want to. You can choose to feel your feelings. Or, you can choose not to. It’s up to you. It’s just a question of whether or not it truly makes you happy and fulfills you, or if it is causing problems in your life in some way. And if it does make you unhappy and is causing problems, it is still your choice about whether or not you want to change this. You have complete free will all the way in this matter.
So, why is it worth being vulnerable and sitting with and feeling your feelings and expressing them? There are many benefits and good reasons to feel and express your feelings: 1) Being comfortable with feeling your feelings and expressing them often translates into being comfortable with other people feeling their feelings and expressing them; 2) The act of feeling your feelings is in essence an act of intimately connecting with yourself. If you can connect intimately with yourself emotionally then this will enable you to connect intimately with your significant others emotionally; 3) Feeling and expressing your feelings is good for your health. Holding in your feelings takes a lot of tensing, tightening, bracing, gripping, and restricting of the muscles in your body. With that energy having nowhere to go it can potentially manifest as various health problems; 4) Being comfortable feeling your own feelings means you are accessing a valuable well of information upon which to take action and base your decisions. For example, your feelings can tell you how to take care of yourself such as when your needs are not being met, or when a boundary has been violated; 5) Becoming practiced in feeling your feelings means that just as much as you increase your chances of feeling pain, you also increase your capacity to feel pleasure; 6) Feeling your feelings means moving away from living in a state of disconnect, numbness, and boredom and moving towards living from a place of more vitality and aliveness; 7) The more adept you become at feeling your feelings, and able to tolerate negative uncomfortable feelings, the more likely you won’t stop yourself from going after things that will bring you more enjoyment in your life. You won’t avoid living your life out of fear of what you can’t control, or the possibility of feeling negative, uncomfortable, or painful feelings; and 8) Feeling your feelings and expressing them means being more human and relatable to others.
It’s true that learning to sit with and feel your feelings and express them can be challenging. But, in my personal experience the long-term rewards are worth it. My hope for you, and all my patients, is that you develop a sense of emotional mastery and freedom. May you be the best version of yourself you can be, and live the happiest and most gratifying life possible. May you no longer live in fear of feeling and expressing your feelings.
Think more about vulnerability with yourself and your feelings on Marram Plapp’s Individual Therapy page.