Why do We Hate Feelings?
Why do we hate feelings? In short, we don’t, we just don’t like the way it makes us feel. Discomfort is not sought out by many, but the sad reality is that discomfort is essential to being human. Experiencing a range of emotions is the beauty of humanity and without uncomfortable feelings, we cannot truly enjoy peace, joy, or being content.
It’s storming right now, and it’s putting me in the contemplative and introspective mood. I love it when it rains, it’s my favorite inclement weather. My girls also aren’t home from daycare yet, so I am alone with my thoughts for a little bit. Love is a feeling and loneliness is a feeling, yet we have something against one and seek the other. Why?
Disclaimer
Not everyone hates feelings, I would assume these people would be called normal or mentally healthy. Most of my friends and I are not fans. When you think about it, neither does society as a whole.
Society
Why do we hate feelings? Society doesn’t like them either.
How often does somebody say, I got dumped I am eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s? Or after a hard day, they say I need a drink? In the words of Brene Brown “have a banana nut muffin and a beer.” Or you might hear someone say, I need retail therapy. These are all ways for us to not go through our emotions, but an attempt to circumnavigate them.
Perhaps you can do this without it being a problem for you or your loved ones, but ultimately you are trying to numb those feelings that you don’t like. What will ultimately happen is you will numb all of your feelings, and end up being a ball of unresolved anger and sadness. In other words, you can’t selectively numb so when you numb the bad, you numb the good.
Now I am not saying that soothing outside of yourself is bad. Sometimes you need to go to a movie, or take a walk, or take a bubble bath. To get through those really overwhelming times, the bad thing is when people just stop there and don’t work on what the problem actually is. They feel better and ignore the cause or source of what made them overwhelmed in the first place.
Or worse they use these things to numb so often they become addicted or are affected negatively by the ways they choose to cope.
Upbringing & Inability to Cope
Why do we hate feelings? Sometimes it’s because they have never had the tools to deal with them.Not surprisingly affected by society, most people don’t know how to deal with things in a psychologically sound way.
Or at least most of the people I know are not taught how to self-soothe or have positive self-talk to get them through hard times. They prefer to ignore “bad” feelings. They won’t even speak about sensitive subjects as if the words themselves, will damn them.
In essence, the way we treat our negative feelings is something that we learn from modeling. Or we are taught through the support we get from our parents, which helps grow our self-soothing. You are left without the ability to internally cope with negative emotions. You are forced to find an external way to soothe.
We Don’t Like To Feel Bad
Why do we hate feelings? They can be uncomfortable!
So, if you are in the aforementioned situation, you are not going to like feeling bad. You feel stuck in emotions because you don’t have any internal resources to help you get through them. Leading you to a beer and a banana nut muffin.
When you experience enough of these situations you can get stuck in the cycle of using a maladaptive coping skill to get through them. Such as shopping, eating, or drinking.
How does the Other Half See Them?
People who have these internal resources see them as necessary emotions to live. They are things that might not be nice, but they are necessary for growth and change. People rarely change anything about themselves or a situation when they are happy.
So when you find yourself thinking this way, you know you have the ability to cope and self-soothe enough to not be self-destructive in a time of negative feelings. In what used to be a crisis of confusion and scrambling to feel better, there is a sense of knowing that everything will be okay, this is not forever and down the road, I will learn from this.
Why do you think that people don’t like to feel? Are you apart of any of these groups of people? Comment below! Or check me out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Check out another post about mental health!
Kirsta
Hi! I am a wife, mommy of 2 girls, a blogger, and a nurse. My daughter has special needs and I have a passion for mental health. So, the drama is a daily occurrence for this mama. Come along for the ride!
5 Comments
Courtney Burris
I will admit. I am part of this community. I am a very positive person. Always trying my best to achieve the same glory we are meant to shine with…but my internal brain has to have a chemical imbalance. Lol. I have learned to communicate more with my loved ones which has helped. I am a big knot sometimes. I have so many feelings, and when thet are bad, I do tend to "push" the negativity away. I am the "hold in all your feelings# type of person. Heck, I even have PNES. A disorder in which hidden stress causes me to have seizure-like spells…So, I guess my point is that, Kirsta is right. Hiding the bad, will only take you further away fron feeling good. Heres to expressing our feelings!!! 🙂
Kirsta Kilpsinger
Couldn't have said it better myself! <3
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