Today I have a super simple exercise that will help you regulate emotions like anxiety, sadness, anger, grief, and even help with ADHD and chronic pain. Wise people have been practicing this for years. Let me show you how.
How to Allow Your Feelings: Break the Fear Cycle
Emotions can feel really intense, and sometimes because of that, we start to fear them. We might think “I can’t handle this” “I shouldn’t be feeling this way” “I have to make it go away!”. We might learn this from the people around us, or we just naturally want to avoid discomfort.
Our brilliant mind tries desperately to protect us from this discomfort. And we humans are exceptionally creative avoiders. We might use:
- Suppression
- Secondary Emotions (anger)
- Intellectualization
- Distraction
- Blame or
- Substance use
We do anything we can to avoid our emotions, especially the unpleasant ones. But this can accidentally lead to us also desperately seeking to avoid the pleasant ones too – Excitement may lead to disappointment- AVOID. Love may lead to hurt – Avoid.
Before long our life feels out of control. Not only have we changed everything we care about to try to not feel those emotions so intensely, but also somehow we feel worse. Our sadness is louder, our joy is muted, nothing feels so exciting anymore, and anxiety seems to rule our day.
But another interesting thing happens in our mind when we run from feelings.
Have you ever been walking down a dark street at night, and thought “I wonder if something is following me!?!?” The fear takes over, you start sprinting towards home – but let me ask you this, when you run, do you feel more or less afraid of the dark? When we run, we feel more scared.
The more we avoid feelings, the more we fear them, and then the bigger they become. Our mind somehow came to believe that feelings are dangerous, and when we run from them (and don’t die) our mind actually increases our anxiety around them.
How can we reverse this? Instead of telling you, let me show you.
Practice How to Accept Your Feelings
Sit with (Allow) the Emotion
Choose one recent moderate emotion you recently experienced. Let’s start with something small to practice with.
Bring it to mind. Perhaps you felt stressed about work. Or worried about politics. Or bothered by what someone did.
Get Present
Start by slowing down. Take a slow breath. Your body has a deep wisdom and knows what to do with these sensations. Take another gentle breath in and exhale slowly. Notice the support of the chair holding you, or your feet pressing into the floor.
Get Curious
Watch what happens when we allow the emotion or the sensation to be there. Scan your body. Where do you notice your feelings? You might notice tension or weight somewhere. Just notice the sensations you are having in your body.
Pretend you’re an explorer, notice your feelings as if for the first time. If you’re feeling a little discomfort right now, that’s actually a good thing because it means we get to practice this new skill.
Observe them as if you’re a snorkeler gliding through a reef, and these sensations are floating below you. You don’t need to change them, just describe them. What does it feel like to have a tight stomach or tense shoulders? Do they have a temperature? A color? A shape?
Our judgey mind says “This is good.” That is bad” but a description says this is hot, this is tense, this is soft, that is light. We want to observe and describe.
By gently observing an emotion or a sensation with calm curiosity, you teach your brain “This isn’t dangerous. I’m safe.”
As you do this quick practice the goal isn’t to make the feeling go away. If you focus on being rid of the emotions, that accidentally reinforces the idea that the feeling is dangerous, which keeps you in the fear-avoidance cycle.
Instead of trying to force the emotions to go away. Today, we’re practicing a new relationship with your emotions, you’re going to show your mind that emotions are safe.
Allow them to be there.
So if you catch yourself struggling against your emotions, or catastrophizing about them (“This will never go away!”) or pressuring yourself to heal faster, just notice yourself getting sucked into that fear cycle. Notice it, and gently shift your attention back to curiosity.
You might notice your mind saying all sorts of things, usually judgements “This is so bad!” or trying to think about the future or the past to avoid the now “I hope this goes away” just notice those as thoughts. Your brain is a word machine, it’s constantly cranking out thoughts. Just tell your mind, “Thank you for those thoughts” and come back to noticing your body, right here, in the present moment.
What you’re doing is showing your mind that here, in this moment, these sensations are actually not dangerous. Feelings aren’t dangerous. Don’t argue with your mind about it, just re-direct your attention to your sensations and go back to observing them with curiosity.
“Thanks, brain… but we’re safe right now.”
You might say something like “It’s ok to have feelings” or,
“Here in this present moment, these sensations are here, and I can be with them”
Your body is your partner in this. Keep observing the feeling. Does it change at all? Does it move to a different part of your body? The sensations you are experiencing are not dangerous, they’re an opportunity to heal, to shift your relationship to your feelings. It’s not something you do in the future, you’re doing it right now, each time you just allow yourself to notice your feelings, thoughts and sensations with openness, presence, attention. You can be with these feelings without needing to run away.
“This might be uncomfortable but it’s not dangerous.”
You’re showing your nervous system that nothing bad is happening right now. And when your brain feels that… it can begin to unwind the fear cycle. Can you notice yourself being gently curious with your feelings? As you catch a glimpse of what it feels like to relate to pain with gentle curiosity, you’re learning through experience that it’s not dangerous.
Moving Forward with Acceptance
Take one more slow breath.
Notice how you feel — not to judge, just to observe.
You’ve just practiced being with your body in a new way. You’ve practiced safety.
The more often you do this — even for one minute at a time — the more your brain learns: “I am okay. I can have feelings. I can feel these feelings and still be ok.”
When you’re ready, open your eyes.
Great job! You just practiced feeling your emotions with curiosity. You’ve taken a step toward breaking the cycle of emotional avoidance and moved toward emotional regulation.
You can practice this exercise on your own a few times a day or when pain comes up. Each time you do, you show your brain that emotions are safe, that you can handle them, and you’ll be less reactive to your feelings. As you regulate your emotions, you’ll be free to choose actions that line up with the happy, purposeful life that you really care about.
Thanks for being here. I’m proud of you. Not many people are willing to try this work.
If you’d like to learn more about how to soothe your nervous system, check out my free online course Grounding Skills for Stress, Anxiety, and PTSD.
