The most cliche line in all of counseling, “and how does that make you feel?”. If you are like me then the first time this line was ever actually uttered to you in real life, your reaction may have been something like “well I wasn’t totally sure, but I can tell you I’m annoyed now”. At least in my case I was deeply confused how telling someone else how I was sad about a sad thing happening would help me or anyone else. Plus, I’ve gotten praise for years on being laid back and unshakable, who would want to change that?
But like most things, I have since changed my opinions on emotions and have a deeper appreciation for what the “feeling” question is trying to accomplish. Much like Amy Poehler’s character in Disney’s Inside/Out, I just did not appreciate the value and complexity of all human emotions.
When you are being asked to tell someone how you feel, think about how much goes into that answer. How do you know what you are feeling? How often to do you stop and take a minute to give value to what you feel? How often are you fighting your own feelings, versus just allowing your experience to exist? What kind of vocabulary do you have to describe how you feel, and if you describe your emotions the same way you did when you were 10 years old is that a good thing?
There is a great book on the subject, Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive by Marc Brackett, PhD that I would highly recommend to anyone. It includes research articles, but is a super attainable read for most people. In the book he makes a great case for the value of giving more attention to our emotions, and how even just increasing our vocabulary for emotions can help us better regulate and essentially “feel better”.
If you ever started therapy with me, I am going to do my best not to just throw a bunch of cliche’s and feelings questions at you, but you are probably going to hear my sales pitch about it. Emotions are fine, and you are probably better at feeling them than you think. They are an important part of the puzzle. So if the options are ignore them and miss the data, or start getting better at sitting with them, then go ahead and ask me the cliche.
Tim
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