Many people do not accept their own feelings – especially the negative ones. When you feel angry, you might tell yourself, “oh no, I shouldn’t feel angry about it”, or maybe “why do I feel so lonely, what’s wrong with me” ?
But the key to mental health (or suffering a bit less at least), is accepting your own feelings as they are, and not judging yourself for having them. That doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly go away, but just that you realise that its OK to be feeling them, there’s nothing wrong about them.
You need to recognise that you feel a certain way for a reason, so your feelings are valid. Most of the time we have very little (if any) control of our emotions – they appear within us without our choosing them, they are not our creations. So we cannot really judge ourselves as ‘bad’, or stupid for having them.
Nor can we judge ourselves if we’re finding it hard to deal with those feelings – we often think “oh why can’t I cope with this, I’m useless” etc. Well there’s not many people who can easily handle their emotions all the time. The truth is, we’re all struggling with our feelings, few of us really feels in control of them.
So there’s no easy solution for coping, but accepting who you are and what you’re feeling (however painful that might be) is a good start. There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling like you do.
I found this blog while searching for other blogs on self-esteem. I enjoyed the article and I think that self-esteem is one of the most important but under-appreciated pieces of psychology. A lot of people suffer from it but most people do not realize they possess it nor how to treat it. It is a shame because we have so little time on this planet and we if we don’t love ourselves what kind of emotions are we having and even more sadly what kind of existence is that? I actually just wrote an article on self-esteem on my blog. I would love for people to check it out and tell me what they think of it. Either way this was a great read and I am going to see what else your site offers.
article is very good. i will feel always useless. now i have ask whom i am. thanks for you
I have read this page many times and keep coming back to read it now and again. One of the big challanges I faced when I stopped drinking was to learn to live with emotions I would normally drink to supress.
Accepting those emotions as being ‘normal’ and not berating myself for having them was a big step forward for me. I know now that uncomfortable emotions wont kill me – and they will always pass.
Accepting how I feel as being normal means I dont need to run away from my feelings or use inappropriate ways of dealing with them – like drinking.
I also find it a challenge to acknowledge my feelings, without beating myself up for them. i thought that this helped. I’m going to print it out and put it in my journal.
I have to agree with Sophie and i also found this article very comforting. The key words is ‘needs to be recongized’ is quite the challenge. Is there a chance you could put some positive affirmations that i can use during the day when i want to reach for a drink?
Noelle
I would just like to say that I found this article really comforting. I have accepted that I have a problem with alcohol but have struggled to accept my own negative feelings. I’ve constantly blamed myself for how I feel, but it’s encouraging to read that we don’t have much control over this. I think I need to accept my feelings as being part of me, and that negative feelings don’t make me a bad person.