The Harmful Message Society Tells Us: Don't Feel

The harmful message society tells us, is not to feel.

Source: Kai Pilger/Unsplash

Many of us have received the message from society throughout our lifetime that we shouldn’t feel. Perhaps this message has been spun with people sharing that emotions are useless, that emotions hold us back from our goals, that emotions make us weak, or even that emotions are “bad” or “wrong."

We may have started to receive these messages at a young age when we were discouraged from or punished for being sad or angry. We may even recognize these messages around us daily as we feel the familiar pull to conform to social norms and give the expected response of “I’m okay" when someone asks how we are, even when it isn’t true. In whatever way we might have received these messages, many of us can find ourselves trying to avoid or suppress our emotions; especially the painful or challenging ones.

Yet, ignoring our emotions can be particularly harmful to us. Emotions are valuable signals from our mind and body about ourselves and the world around us. Just as the pain sensors in our body alert us to physical pain, our emotions send us messages about how we are doing and how interactions with others, the world, or even how our own thoughts and perceptions, are impacting us. Just as you wouldn’t ignore pain sensors alerting you to take your hand off of a burning stove, we also shouldn't shrug off our emotions as unimportant or useless. So, if emotions can be challenging and painful at times to navigate, why shouldn't we ignore them? What benefit does acknowledging and feeling our emotions bring us?

1. Emotions send us valuable messages that help us to take care of ourselves, relate to others, and navigate our world.

When we ignore emotions, we are missing out on valuable information that will help us to better take care of ourselves, others, and adapt to our environment. Consider these examples about how emotions can provide valuable information.

• When speaking with a close friend, they disclose that they recently endured a tragic loss of a loved one. As you listen, you feel overcome with sadness as you witness their grief and suffering. This sadness that you experience, although painful, supports you in recognizing your friend's needs and meeting them where they are with empathy and kindness.
• While you are at home one evening in bed, you hear an unfamiliar sound. You instantly recognize the emotion of fear rising in your mind and body. This physiological and emotional response aims to protect you and to prepare your body to engage in a fight, flight, or freeze response if a threat is indeed present.
• In a conversation with someone, they make a degrading, hurtful, and abrasive remark about you. In response, you experience feelings of anger and frustration. This emotional experience allows you to recognize that there is something about this interaction that needs to be explored and might be harmful. Are there boundaries that need to be set with this individual if they are making hurtful comments towards you? What might this comment have brought up for you that might need to be explored?

Even though emotions may be uncomfortable, painful, or even feel unnecessary, they provide us with information that is useful to us. When we have an emotional experience, it can be helpful to ask ourselves, what is my mind and body currently trying to tell me about myself, others, or the world around me?

When we allow ourselves to acknowledge and feel our emotions, we can begin to work through them.

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2. Suppressing our emotions can be harmful to our well-being, mental health, relationships, and physiological health.

Research helps us understand how suppressing our emotions can cause both short-term and long-term consequences for our wellbeing and relationships (Barlow et al., 2018; Chapman et al., 2013; Peters et al., 2014; Srivastava, 2009). Ironically, not acknowledging or feeling emotions makes us experience more of that emotion. For example, not acknowledging our sadness can contribute to further sadness or depression. Not acknowledging our anger and working through it can contribute to further anger and aggression. Not acknowledging our stress only contributes to further anxiety or depression in the future. As a therapist, I frequently talk to my clients about the danger in playing Emotional Whac-A-Mole (for more on this, see my post "Are You Playing Emotional Whac-A-Mole?") and the consequences it can have. When we push down our emotions, they often resurface unexpectedly and can return with increased intensity and frequency. You see, when we listen to the messages that say “don’t feel," ironically we end up feeling more.

3. Acknowledging our emotions is the first step to being able to cope with them effectively.

Emotions are a signal from the brain that we have something that we need to process and respond to. Whether they are emotions surrounding traumatic experiences, relational conflicts, or daily stressors, when we don’t allow ourselves to feel and work through the emotions, our brain is not able to appropriately process what it needs to and can get “stuck” in a sense as the message goes unrecognized. To address our needs, we must first be able to recognize what that need is. The reality is, when we allow ourselves to feel, we can then begin to move through our feelings instead of feeling stuck or controlled by them.

So today, may we decide to acknowledge our emotions and feel. May we ask ourselves, “What am I feeling?” (a great resource for this can be found by looking at the Feeling Wheel developed by Dr. Gloria Wilcox) and “What messages or information are these emotions giving me?” and “What do I want to do with this information about myself, others, or the world?” May we give ourselves permission to listen to our mind and body so that we can better take care of ourselves and respond to the world around us.