Feeling Your Feelings: A Washington Therapist’s Guide to Emotional Processing
Many of us have heard that we need to “feel our feelings.” But what does that really mean? How do you do that?
As a virtual therapist serving individuals and couples in Spokane and throughout Washington state, I often explore this idea with clients: giving ourselves permission to experience emotions fully, without judgment, avoidance, or suppression. You might be thinking “wow, that’s ambiguous.” And it can be if we don’t know where to start. This is a skill some of us are never taught in the first place.
Why Feeling Your Feelings Matters
There’s a reason why this skill is helpful. Creating emotional awareness, acceptance, and tolerance can help us better tune into our own needs and learn how to support ourselves through challenging experiences. This is a key component to emotional regulation, another skill that often comes up in the therapy room. Emotions are inevitable, so learning to steward ourselves through the highs and lows of life in a way that feels supportive and sustainable is a lifelong skill.
So how do you do it?
Acknowledgement.
First, we must acknowledge that we’re having a feeling at all. This can be as simple as naming and labeling the emotion. You might say “I’m feeling really anxious right now.” Noticing what’s going on for us gives us an opportunity to understand and respond.
This might be difficult and that’s OK. Some folks have a really hard time naming the feeling that is happening for them. Again some of us don’t learn skills of emotional intelligence until well into adulthood. Additionally, factors like neurodivergence, trauma, and dysregulation can make it harder to understand what we are feeling.
This can also be really uncomfortable, especially when dealing with emotions that might feel more difficult for you. It’s hard to let ourselves be uncomfortable or distressed because we don’t want to be – it doesn’t feel good. Our brains, get really good at protecting us from the uncomfortable. We might push away what we don’t wanna look at, what we don’t want to feel into.
Allowance.
We want to create some space for this feeling to exist without judgment, avoidance, or suppression. Once you name and acknowledge your feelings, you might start to judge yourself for feeling a particular way, want to ignore it all together, or try to avoid or push them down.
Again, this can be a challenge because we don't like to feel bad. It’s distressing and uncomfortable, but it’s part of the wide range of the human experience. The harder we push a feeling away the harder it’s gonna try to be felt.
In sessions, I’ve used an analogy of trying to push away feelings is like trying to hold an inflatable ball underwater. It takes constant effort and focus, and you can still feel the ball is there. If you let go, the ball is still right there – it might even be jumping up out of the water rather than just floating on the surface.
We may push away from our feelings because we think we “shouldn’t feel that,” or may be afraid it will make it worse or we’ll get stuck there. However, once we relieve the tension, and let it exist (because it will either way) we can make room for compassion, understanding, and validation.
Understanding and Validation.
After we have named and truly let ourselves feel what is coming up for us, we can work to piece together why we might have a certain emotion. Maybe you felt hurt by your partner’s tone, or you are really not looking forward to a work call. Once you have the space, you can explore why it’s coming up and lend some compassion for yourself.
Importantly, knowing what is happening in our “internal world” also gives us more room to respond in a way that feels supportive and sustainable – as opposed to feeling “ruled” by our emotional drives. This is especially useful in couples therapy, where understanding your emotional landscape can help improve communication and conflict resolution.
Emotions can be seen as information pointing us towards something that we might need or want. For example anger is a really good indicator that we’re feeling mistreated or a boundary was crossed. Anger can let us know what we might need to do something different in the future. Some may have gotten messaging early on that some feelings were ok and others were not. Or, have experiences of sharing how they felt, only to be met with invalidation or criticism.
Support
Once you have moved through these different components, you may be in need of some support. I’ll often ask clients to pause and ask themselves “what might I need while I am feeling this way?” It may be a few minutes of deep breathing, a walk with a friend, or a gym session with an fast paced playlist. It may be a combination of things you try until you find what feels helpful to you. There is no one size fits all “solution” to our feelings. Let yourself explore what support looks like and feels like to you.
Keep Practicing!
Like with any skill, we want to focus on the process and progress instead of perfection. Give yourself permission to experiment with this new way of connecting with yourself to find what works best for you. Exploring our relationship with our own emotional state can make room for self-compassion and understanding – something we all could use a little more of. Keep practicing, you got this!
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Let’s Connect
I'm Kelsey Graham, owner of Fen & Fir Counseling. I offer virtual individual and couples therapy to clients across Spokane and Washington state. If this message resonates with you and you’re ready to take the next step in your personal work, I invite you to reach out for a free consultation here. I would be honored to support you!
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Disclaimer: this post is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not substitute or provide mental help.