Here are a few of my favourite strategies to make unpleasant feelings go away:
- Drink wine
- Get busy (cleaning, sorting, organising)
- Scroll mindlessly on social media
- Buy stuff I think I need
The list goes on, but you get the idea. Sound familiar?
But what’s really going on here? What is my body really asking for? It’s not more action, more doing, more distraction, or more data. It certainly doesn’t want false positivity—affirmations or positive mantras. That actually makes me feel even more rage.
This feeling is asking for attention. It’s asking to be seen, to be heard, and to be felt.
“What the hell are you talking about—how is that supposed to help me feel better?” I hear you scream.
When we open up to feel our feelings, at first it feels a bit worse. If we don’t have the tools to know how to hold our ‘negative’ emotions, it can feel completely overwhelming. So it makes sense that we protect ourselves using whatever methods possible.
We aren’t taught how to hold space for our emotions. We’re encouraged to be strong, resilient, bulletproof. Vulnerability isn’t welcomed. We’re supposed to just know how to manage. We haven’t been shown how to experience and welcome all parts of ourselves—and the cost of this takes a huge toll on our mental, physical, and emotional health.
When we can’t sit with difficult emotions, the result is maladaptive behaviour. It looks different for each of us, but you know how it shows up for you. It’s the habits you wish you didn’t have but can’t seem to stop—eating too much, drinking too much, procrastination, self-sabotage, people-pleasing. In a way, these behaviours are keeping us safe, protecting us from feeling and seeing what we believe is too painful.
Avoiding my feelings took me to some very dark places. There was a time when I would rather have died than feel the pain of my emotions. But I was missing something simple. I was missing the tools to feel safe with my unwanted emotions.
Happily, I now have those tools. Somatic Mindfulness has given me the skills to hold space for myself and sit with all of my experiences, including the painful ones. I’ve also trained to do this for others. I can recognise when people are struggling to be with themselves because I’ve been there.
I work with people who are stuck, sad, angry, frustrated, and overwhelmed. I work with people who feel like something is missing—who want to feel whole—who are tired of running from “bad” feelings. People who are exhausted. People who are ready to look at what’s really there beneath the noise and reconnect with their truth.
The Somatic Mindfulness Program was a huge success earlier this year, and I’m so excited to be offering it again. This work has completely changed my life.
To access full program details, contact amanda@agilemind.com.au.
