Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings....

"If you make one emotion wrong, you make all emotion wrong....to the degree that you are not comfortable being in your anger and your sadness, is the same degree to which you diminish your capacity to let in joy, peace, and all the others." --Christian Pankhurst

I have been bumping into this idea - FEEL YOUR FEELINGS - a lot lately, including in my own advice column. But it's a hard one.

It's a hard one to DO, it's a hard one to REMEMBER to do, and it's a REALLY hard one to teach your kids. 

So often we don't think we have the time to let our kids (or ourselves) feel their feelings, but the more I work with this concept, the more I think the very opposite is true. Taking the time to feel your feelings - and to let others do the same - ultimately SAVES a whole lotta time in my opinion.

Take this morning for example. My older son wasn't feeling well. He was lying on the floor moaning and not eating his breakfast. There was a part of me that was saying, "Oh no, not this again...." and who wanted to march right over there and force him to eat and let him know in no uncertain terms that he was going to school today.

But I checked myself. Instead I went over to him, knelt down and asked him how he was doing. I rubbed his head and let him tell me that he wasn't used to going to school after a week off. I empathized, gave him a big hug and then went back to gathering lunches and finding sweatshirts and picking up stray homework sheets in order to help the boys get out the door.

A few minutes later he was up and at'em. Finding some socks, packing his backpack, getting ready to go. No fuss, no muss.

Just a few seconds of feeling his feelings - and having that validated - and he was able to make it happen.

It made me wonder...How often do we make things WORSE - for ourselves and for those around us - by not taking the time to feel our feelings and allowing others to do the same?

I am pretty sure I know how this morning would have gone if I had marched over to my son and undermined his feelings. He would have dug his heels in, moaned louder, procrastinated longer, and maybe even have convinced me that he needed to stay home today. But by allowing him just a few brief seconds to wallow and feel, I made room for him to move from feeling bad to feeling better, all right, capable.

How much time, pain, stress, body aches and therapy could be saved each year if we just FELT OUR FEELINGS and allowed others to do the same (without taking it on as something to feel guilty about or to judge)?  Let's find out.

Watch these great videos from Christian Pankhurst, Britain's Next Top Coach, and give it a try for yourself. Take the time to really FEEL YOUR FEELINGS and see what happens next.

Good luck and lots of love!

Emotional pain is the resistance to feeling by Christian Pankhurst:



3 Steps to instantly feel better:



I would also recommend a great article entitled, "What To Do With Your Feelings."