How To Share Your Feelings

We’ve all had that moment where someone has done or said something that hurts our feelings and we’re left sitting in that emotion wondering how to talk about it without blaming, accusing, or being passive-aggressive. Many times, we choose to keep our feelings to ourselves in an effort to avoid conflict.

When we have hurt feelings, we might find ourselves thinking things like:

“If I say something, it won’t change anything.”

“I don’t want to sound needy.”

“I should just get over it.”

We fear that sharing our feelings will lead to fighting or distance. But there are ways to talk about how we feel that can create closeness and understanding.

Here’s a little script that can help:

I feel [feeling] when you [behavior]. I need [behavior].

When our feelings are hurt, our first step is to take responsibility for our needs. We’re all different. We all carry with us an extensive history of family patterns, experiences, and beliefs that contribute to what triggers hurt feelings.

Because we’re all different, we can’t expect our friend/family member/partner to mind-read what type of communication or behavior is going to hurt us.*

Taking responsibility for our needs means noticing when our feelings are hurt, what triggered the hurt, and what we would prefer in place of the hurtful communication/behavior next time.

An example could look like this:

“I feel unheard when you tell me to ‘think positively’ when I say I’m stressed. I need you to listen and tell me you understand before you try to help.”

From this approach, we identify the behavior/communication as the issue—not the other person—and give the other person clear direction about how to meet our needs.

You deserve to share your feelings and the people in your life deserve to hear them. Your loved ones can tell you are hurt! They’ll likely be relieved to know how they can support you instead of trying to guess what they did wrong.

Relationships (of any capacity) give us so many opportunities to be brave, take responsibility, and share our feelings and needs. With practice, we can use these opportunities to create closeness instead of conflict.

What feelings will you share today?

*This is said within reason, of course. It is never okay for someone to behave or speak in an abusive manner. If you are wondering how to address abusive behaviors and/or communication in relationship, I recommend you seek professional help. You can start by searching for a therapist who specializes in relationships and abuse.

How To Replace Fear With Safety

When we feel depressed or anxious, it’s normal for us to drop into black-and-white thinking, especially when it comes to relationships. We place things in categories to keep our life safe and predictable. This includes the people in our lives.

We place people we’re comfortable with in the “safe box”, and we place people we’re challenged by in the “unsafe box”. 

This would be highly adaptable if people were that simple. But none of us are perfect. We make mistakes. We let each other down. We drop the ball. 

If we place everyone in our life who has ever wronged us in the “unsafe box”, we will be left feeling unsupported and alone. Lack of social support is the last thing we need when we’re feeling depressed and anxious.

There must be a better way. A better way to maintain safe AND realistic relationships.

This is where the work comes in. We need to toss the streamlined process of categorizing we’ve developed to protect ourselves and begin practicing...you guessed it...setting boundaries.

Setting boundaries involves effective communication about our needs and feelings in relationships. No wonder our culture would prefer the boxes. Knowing our needs and feelings, much less communicating them, can be so hard!!!

If we start small and mindfully, we can begin noticing what NEED we’re missing when we feel that urge to push someone away and put them in the “unsafe box”.

Do we need to feel listened to? Do we need space? Do we need connection?

What would it be like to communicate our needs and see what happens? Is it possible this mending of relationship--this sharing and being responded to--could feel even more safe and healing than someone getting it perfectly right in the first place?

After we set boundaries, we can look for evidence to support a person’s place in the “safe box” or “unsafe box”. We can observe whether the other person behaviorally respected our boundary request.

In this way, setting boundaries cuts down on our urge to mind-read or fortune-tell--both unreliable sources of information. We can instead perceive behavioral evidence that we are safe or unsafe.

Setting boundaries then creates self-trust and safety rather than feeding the fear that comes with the unpredictability of people and relationships. 

If you’re interested in working with me personally to overcome your unique challenges related to boundary-setting and begin replacing your fear with safety, I invite you to contact me here.

Are You Chameleoning?

“The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.” -John Green

Are you an expert at adapting to the people and places around you like a chameleon? When we over-adapt, we risk losing our connection to ourselves, our values, and our boundaries. This can leave us feeling depressed and anxious.

As much as we’d like to be the most agreeable, easygoing person in the room, we simply can’t please everyone. What are some ways you notice yourself over-adapting?

Here are some ideas:

-Taking on more projects or activities than we would like to “keep up”

-Participating in language or behaviors we don’t prefer to “fit in” 

-Spending too much time alone or too much time with others to satisfy norms in our social group

-Allowing our self-expression/appearance to be overly-influenced by the people around us

-Letting go of activities we’re passionate about to make time for what’s important to “the group”

When we mindfully limit over-adapting, we have more control over our mood, self-esteem, and health. We feel more authentic, more respected, and more confident.

If you tend to chameleon or over-adapt, all you need to do to re-center is consider what practices ground you back into yourself. What activities and ways of being have you let go of that are important to you? Jump back in to those things, and you’ll feel back to normal in no time.

Mindfulness Builds Intuition

“Mindfulness is awareness that arises from paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, non-judgmentally.” -Kabat-Zinn

We typically navigate our day-to-day experience on auto-pilot, mainly using thought as our guide. We plan and we process. You might notice even now that your awareness is mainly in your mind and almost completely disconnected from your body and emotions.

Mindfulness allows present-moment awareness of our thoughts, emotions, sensations, and memories. It is like a superpower in this way. In mindfulness, we can access WAY more information about our internal experience than when we rely solely on the mind.

When we practice mindfulness to access the vibrancy of present moment experience, we can pick up on pieces of our truth that we would otherwise miss when stuck in thought. In other words, we build our intuition.

For example, in making a decision, we could use thought to weigh the pros and cons of each choice. We could also use mindfulness to sense how each choice feels in our body. These sensations are informed by our thoughts, memories, and emotions.

What would it be like to get curious about how your body feels in a choice? Would you feel relaxed or tense? What would you notice is informing that sensation?

We make more informed choices when we add mindfulness to our decision-making toolbox. More informed choices = more thriving and less suffering!

When we practice mindfulness, we build intuition, and we make choices that help us thrive.

How To Think Positively...and Believe It

Harnessing the “power of positive thinking” can feel like an elusive and frustrating endeavor. If you’ve ever tried to replace negative thoughts with more positive thoughts, you know believing them is easier said than done.

Have you ever been in a negative headspace and had someone sweetly advise you to “be positive”? You’re not alone if this made you want to scream.

Thinking positively AND BELIEVING IT is hard!

Here are two tricks that make thinking positively and believing it possible:

Validate Yourself

Our positive thought must acknowledge what is true about the negative/sad/worried part of our thinking. Our thoughts should validate us, just like we validate our friends before going into fix-it mode. It takes us off the defense. No unicorn or rainbow thoughts allowed.

If I am stressing about paying my bills, telling myself, “Who cares?! Money is just paper!” isn’t going to resolve my worry.

If I tell myself, “This is stressful. I don’t know what to do now, but I know I’ll figure it out,” I am more likely to feel soothed and relaxed.

Notice Your Body

Once we have a validating positive thought, notice what is happening in the body. When we are thinking negatively, a sensation pairs with the negative thought. This could be a pit in the stomach, tightness in the throat, or a racing heart.

When we use an effective positive thought that validates and uplifts us, the proof is in the body. Do the shoulders relax? Does the heart lift? Does the breath deepen?

If so, high five! You have mastered how to think positively and believe it.