How to Make Peace With Your Most Painful Emotions

A Practice for Self Acceptance

Debby GerminoFollowDec 8, 2017 · 8 min read

It is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so deeply. — David Jones

Emotions are a funny thing. They sneak up on us at the most inopportune times. I went through a phase in college where I got choked up at even the slightest hint of injustice or conflict directed my way. It happened mostly with my mother but it also occurred with my managers at work. Anytime I was put in a position where I might have to defend or stand up for myself, I got a huge lump in my throat, my chest tightened, and I knew if I tried to utter a word it would come out in that awful quivering, crying voice.

So instead of allowing the emotion to emerge, I would swallow the lump in my throat, sit in silence, and allow the feelings to fester inside of me as I desperately prayed for them to go away so I could at least pretend to be an adult.

It was an awful feeling. It lasted through college and even for the first year out of college. If it weren’t for my sisters, I’m not sure it would have ever passed. They were my safe place to turn. I could tell them anything without fear of being judged. I’m still not sure exactly what I was feeling that got me so worked up in those years. But I am fairly certain it had a lot do with my incessant self criticism, relentless harsh judgement and feelings of inadequacy in every facet of life. I chastised myself for not being able to deal with the slightest confrontation without a quivering voice and an explosion of emotion coming out.

Once in awhile now, I feel the lump return. Again, it’s usually in situations of injustice. Now, years later, I can usually talk my way through it without breaking down into tears.

Yet part of me wonders, would it be so awful to allow myself to cry?

Accepting Your Emotions

Why do we put our emotions in a bottle? We stuff them in so tightly that eventually the bottle bursts and we’re left with a flood of feelings we don’t know how to deal with.

We label our emotions good or bad, positive or negative.

It’s good to feel happy.

It’s bad to feel sad.

It’s good to feel excited about the new job you just got.

It’s bad to feel jealous your best friend is getting married and you’re still single.

What if your emotions didn’t have a label attached to them? What if you were allowed to feel them without judgement?

Sadness could just feel sad. Leave out the layer of guilt, shame, or criticism that usually gets added. Don’t judge the validity of your feelings and definitely don’t judge their presence.

I had a friend commit suicide when I was in middle school. He was 12 years old. He hung himself with the phone cord of the phone he was using to talk to me at the time. I cried for what felt like weeks. Even after many months, I would still find myself in tears at the mention of his name or a song that reminded me of him. I remember not wanting to let go of the sadness because somehow that would mean I had let him go or forgotten him all together.

Sometimes I clung onto that sadness so hard it felt like I was forcing myself to feel it. I was judging myself for not feeling enough or feeling it in the wrong way. Other times, tears would erupt like a volcano in the most awkward situations, like during class in school. I judged myself for that too. God, Debby! Get a hold of yourself. No one wants to see your blubbering mess in the middle of music class.

As if the emotion itself isn’t enough to deal with, we pile on judgement and criticism, berating ourselves for feeling too much, feeling it the wrong way, or not feeling enough. We arbitrarily decide how long is sufficient enough to grieve for a lost friend. We push aside the anger or hurt we feel when we’re treated unfairly or unjustly. We dismiss it as overreacting or tell ourselves we shouldn’t “rock the boat.”

The result of these pushed aside emotions has landed us in a society where it’s easier to bury our true feelings than to express them. Power and authority has trampled and belittled our emotions to such a degree that we no longer value them as worthy of our attention.

But they are worthy of our attention.

The quivering voice deserves to be heard.

Compassion Starts Within

For that voice to truly be heard, we have to love it from within first. We have to stop criticizing ourselves for feeling. We cannot control our emotions. For all of our furious efforts to ignore, bury, or run from our feelings, there will come a time when they eventually manifest. This usually comes in the most inconvenient of outbursts, behaviors, or breakdowns.

Rather than trying to control the uncontrollable inevitability of emotions, what would it be like if we embraced them and allowed them to be?

When a child cries because he misses his mom, we don’t tell him to suck it up and get over it. We console him and comfort him.

So why do we berate ourselves as adults when we feel sad? Compassion needs to start with the self. We can’t love others wholly and completely if we don’t first love ourselves.

This means being kind when you eat that cookie you told yourself you weren’t going to eat.

This means being patient when you find yourself crying over the pet you lost a year ago.

This means being encouraging when you miss a day at the gym rather than scolding yourself.

This means being supportive when you don’t get that raise or promotion you were hoping for at work.

This means being compassionate when you lose your temper with your partner, child, or friend.

This means giving yourself a break when you just can’t seem to get all the items checked off of your to do list.

This means actually keeping that long put off doctor’s appointment that keeps getting relegated to the bottom of your priorities.

And this means setting aside a few minutes every day to practice self compassion and self love so that all of the above actually happen.

Benefits of Self Compassion

The benefits of self compassion are backed by science and research and have been proven to improve overall happiness and well being. According to Psychology Today,

“…self-compassion is more beneficial to our psychological well-being than self-esteem because it is associated with ‘greater emotional resilience, more accurate self-concepts, more caring relationship behavior, as well as less narcissism and reactive anger.’”

The New York Times points to research that shows,

“People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic. Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.”

Dr. Kristin Neff is an an associate professor of human development and conducted her research at the University of Texas at Austin. She relates self compassion to motivation and has this to say on the subject,

“The reason you don’t let your children eat five big tubs of ice cream is because you care about them. With self-compassion, if you care about yourself, you do what’s healthy for you rather than what’s harmful to you.”

How do we practice Self Compassion?

According to Dr. Neff, there are three components to self compassion:

1. Self Kindness: steering clear of self judgement

2. Common Humanity: understanding we all share in suffering; we are not alone in our experience.

3. Mindfulness: awareness of emotions without over identifying with them

Beginning a mindfulness practice will build the foundation for all of these elements to synergistically meld together. If this is new to you, one of the best ways to begin is to bring awareness to your self talk.

Notice how often your self talk is negative. Try writing down every time you say something negative to yourself. At the end of the day, look at what you wrote and imagine you were talking to a friend. You likely would never utter any of those words to a friend.

When I first did this, I couldn’t believe how often I was saying negative things to myself. The voice had become so common, I barely noticed I was berating myself for the most trivial of things.

Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror might evoke, “Wow, your skin looks awful today.”

Or I would be on my morning run and suddenly I’d hear, “You really should be running a lot faster. Why are you being so lazy?”

Or I’d be trying to peacefully eat a meal when that lovely voice would remind me, “You really don’t need to eat that entire plate of food. Those love handles aren’t getting any smaller.”

Looking at it on paper is eye opening. It reads like an abusive relationship. And in fact, that is exactly what it is. If I was hearing those words from someone else in my life, it would absolutely qualify as verbal abuse. It’s easy to recognize when you see it on paper.

The good news is, once you become aware of it, you can take steps to change it. The next time you begin to hear that inner negative critic, pretend you are talking to your best friend. What would you say to her in this situation? Then tell yourself you deserve that same compassion.

Remember, compassion isn’t about making the pain go away. It’s about being with the pain in a kind and accepting manner. Remind yourself that all things are temporary and compassion and love are the path of least resistance.

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Inmy next post, I will share a self compassion practice that can be done daily to increase your patience and love for yourself.

Until then, practice being mindful of your thoughts. Notice when your inner critic is running the show. Then gently escort him to the bench and show him how much more successful self compassion can be in fostering a happy and thriving life.

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