Sit with your feelings

In and outside of therapy we’re often told to “sit” with our emotions. What does this truly mean?

It took me a while to get to this point, but I think of sitting with my feelings like co-passengers in public transportation. No matter what my destination, I will always have co-passengers entering the bus mid-way. Some of them will be noisy, some sleepy, some eerily quiet and some will nag at you. We don’t always like our co-passengers but we know that eventually either they will arrive at their destination or I will, and so no matter how annoying, we coexist. 

You see where I’m going with this… no matter what, feelings can be treated like a fellow passenger sitting next to me on a train, bus, or airplane. I may not like it, but I choose to coexist with my feelings; acknowledging that they’re “sitting” right there with me. I validate their existence.

Sitting with our feelings is one of the hardest, scariest things we can do. I’d rather binge-watch Friends for the 4th time, doom-scroll through Instagram, become a workaholic, or even think about anything else at all. However, when I avoid my emotions and ignore my feelings, I in turn train my brain to be scared of my feelings, thus allowing my brain to permanently flag out emotions as something to protect oneself from. As humans, there’s no way out of feeling emotions, but when I try to run from them, I give them ammunition to run behind me ten times faster! 

What’s the alternative? To begin with - VALIDATING our feelings. Allow yourself to simply label the ‘sadness’ or ‘anxiety’ and so on, and sit with it for a little while, even if it feels like the hardest thing you’ve ever done. After all, the only way out is through.