Want to change your life? Accept your emotions first

One thing I always lamented about myself is that I am an emotional person. Sometimes in personality quizzes I see the question: “Do you admire, A) people who make decisions using their head or B) people who make decisions using their heart?” In those cases I always choose A. Being an emotional wreck of a person myself - a flopping emotional sponge - I admire people who are the opposite of me, who don’t let their heart overtake their decisions, who can remain cool and calm in the face of danger, who can see the rational overtures that a personal emotional rant has no room for. (And I always wonder/hope, just because I chose A, the quiz knows this knows I’m not saying this about myself.)

But I also wonder who in their right mind would choose B? In this modern society that values logical reasoning over emotional displays, people would rather run away from emotions than face them. After all, life sucks. Nothing turns out the way you want it to. A restaurant isn’t as amazing as the reviews said. The top you eyed online doesn’t fit you or look good on you as it did when it was just an item in a scrolling catalog. A friend or trusted colleague is rude to you out of the blue. The people we love choose to not love us back. We don't get into the school we want, or any school. Replace school with job. Something happens with a loved one. We get a health scare. Dreams don't come true. But oftentimes, society encourages us not to let out those feelings, but to cover up sadness and depression.

One thing that shocked me when I became a teacher myself, is how many other teachers I’ve met who do not know how to handle an emotionally upset kid. So it’s not just the young people - it’s everyone in these times. And the result is higher rates of depression and loneliness. It’s no wonder counseling apps are so popular, or people refer to their therapist as if they were talking about a friend. Let’s face it - we’re not good at processing our emotions. I don’t know if we ever were but definitely not now, when reality to us also comes from the internet, social media and other things that aren’t real.

I think people are so afraid of facing their emotions is because they equate emotion with thought. When I say thought, I mean “biased statements”. You may be feeling down/depressed because your boyfriend broke up with you. But things such as “Greg was the only guy for me and now I’ll never find another one.” “Greg understood everything about me and I was wrong to let him go” “I’m a horrible person, because Greg won't get back together with me” “Everything was better when Greg and I were together” are THOUGHTS. These are the ones that fuel emotion. In order to move past an emotionally hard event, one must sieve thoughts from emotions and do different things with each. With emotions, you accept. With thoughts, you change. Let me say that again. ACCEPT YOUR EMOTIONS, BUT CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS.

Changing your thoughts is, I think, the easier of the two to understand how to fix. Google “Cognitive Based Therapy” - that’s exactly what it is. But I want to talk a little about accepting the emotions. Because that’s the harder part. We need to honestly acknowledge and accept those emotions ourselves first.

(Small disclaimer: I am not a professional psychologist, though I did study psychology in college. I'm only stating my opinions based on my life experiences and you are free to take or leave the thoughts I have.)

In our society today, we find it hard to talk about emotions because they are equated with thoughts. But that couldn’t be further from the course on how to treat them. Someone saying things like “Everything was better when Greg and I were together” are not talking about emotions - they’re thoughts. Instead, how about just saying the emotion itself? How calming and therapeutic it is to simply just say “I’m really sad because Greg and I broke up” and the other person goes “I’m so sorry to hear that. You must be going through a hard time.” We need to acknowledge these emotions more without the combining thought. And it doesn’t take a therapist to do so. We don’t need to vent for hours about how shitty our boyfriend made us feel. We just need someone to say “I hear you, you’re angry” when we are so angry to tears over how our boyfriend made us feel. We just need someone to say “I’m so sorry, that’s really painful” when a loved one passes away.

But the problem is that we won’t even go out of our way to say simple “I’m sad because my grandma died yesterday” because we are either afraid that people will not acknowledge our emotions, or because we don’t want to face it ourselves and we would rather run away. Because the more honest and raw it is, the more it hurts. Plus the more specific it is, the more it hurts and the more people try to avoid it - both the person themselves and the others around them. But you have the face the monster in the cage. The lion in the den. If you do not get through this first step, then no matter how much you change your thoughts afterwards through CBT, it will not work.

Some people are afraid acknowledging the emotions means you give that emotion free rein to do everything - that they’ll lose control of themselves. But not necessarily so. As a teacher I went through a suicidal intervention workshop called QPR (CPR for suicide) and one thing the course teaches is that actually saying the word “suicidal” or “suicide” doesn't increase and can even decrease the risk of suicide. Another proof is when you actually face the emotion. If you actually set a timer to 15 min and told yourself “Okay I’m going to be nothing but depressed for 15 min” very few people are able to do it. The key here is to IGNORE all thoughts, and just focus on being depressed. Try it - and you’ll find it incredibly hard to do when you have only the emotion and no thought to continue fueling the emotions. If anything, you actually may stop being depressed after just 10 seconds or so because your body is too tired to continue it!

Finally, if you're someone who doesn't have anybody - a friend, a therapist, a trusted adult - then counsel yourself. You too, have the ability to heal yourself. Tell yourself how you're honestly feeling, and acknowledge it, for you. I mean no religious connotation here, but it is as that line goes - "The truth will set you free."

I’m not saying we should all go around be flopping sponges of emotion. Nor am I saying that emotion is something that should be ignored. Accepting it, then letting go - thats what the emotion is here to do. Emotions are like life because they change. It’s meant to be experienced but it’s also meant to be let go. It is because we are unable to accept other people’s honest emotions that we are unable to be honest about our emotions ourselves. Let’s change that, and be a better friend to ourselves first. So go out there and experience your emotions, all of it to the fullest rainbow category they are.