denial stage of the grief processcan lead us
page_144Page 145into trouble with overeating, undereating, alcohol and other drug use, compulsive sexual behaviors, compulsive spending,
not sleeping enough, sleeping too much, obsessing, controlling gestures, and other compulsive behaviors. 3
Feelings are energy. Repressed feelings block our energy. We don't do our best when we're blocked.
Another problem with repressed feelings is they don't go away. They linger, sometimes growing stronger and causing us
to do many peculiar things. We have to stay one step ahead of the feeling, we have to stay busy, we have to do
something. We don't dare get quiet and peaceful because we might then feel these emotions. And the feeling might
squeak out anyway, causing us to do something we never intended to do: scream at the kids, kick the cat, spill on our
favorite dress, or cry at the party. We get stuck in feelings because we're trying to repress them, and like a persistent
neighbor, they will not go away until we acknowledge their presence.
The big reason for not repressing feelings is that emotional withdrawal causes us to lose our positive feelings. We lose the
ability to feel. Sometimes, this may be a welcome relief if the pain becomes too great or too constant, but this is not a
good plan for living. We may shut down our deep needsour need to love and be lovedwhen we shut down our emotions.
We may lose our ability to enjoy sex, the human touch. We lose the ability to feel close to people, otherwise known as
intimacy. We lose our capacity to enjoy the pleasant things in life.
We lose touch with ourselves and our environment. We are no longer in touch with our instincts. We become unaware of
what our feelings are telling us and any problems in our environment. We lose the motivating power of feelings. If we
aren't feeling, we're probably not examining the thinking that goes with it, and we don't know what our selves are telling
us. And if we don't deal with our feelings we don't change and we don't grow. We stay stuck.
Feelings might not always be a barrel of gladness, but repressing them can be downright miserable. So what's the
solution? What do we do with these pesky feelings that seem to be both a burden and a delight?
page_145Page 146We feel them. We can feel. It's okay to feel our feelings. It's okay for us to have feelingsall of them. It's even okay for
men to feel. Feelings are not wrong. They're not inappropriate. We don't need to feel guilty about feelings. Feelings are
not acts; feeling homicidal rage is entirely different from committing homicide. Feelings shouldn't be judged as either
good or bad. Feelings are emotional energy; they are not personality traits.
People say there are hundreds of different feelings, ranging from peeved to miffed to exuberant to delighted and so on.
Some therapists have cut the list to four: mad, sad, glad, and scared. These are the four primary feeling groups, and all
the rest are shades and variations. For instance, lonely and "down in the dumps" would fall in the sad category; anxiety
and nervousness would be variations of the scared theme; tickled pink and happy would qualify as glad. You can call
them whatever you want; the important idea is to feel them.
That doesn't mean we have to always be on guard for one feeling or the other. It doesn't mean we have to devote an
extraordinary amount of our lives to wallowing in emotional muck. In fact, dealing with our feelings means we can move
out of the muck. It means if a feelingemotional energycomes our way, we feel it. We take a few moments, acknowledge
the sensation, and move on to the next step. We don't censor. We don't block. We don't run from. We don't tell ourselves,
"Don't feel that. Something must be wrong with me." We don't pass judgment on ourselves for our feelings. We
experience them. We allow the energy to pass through our bodies, and we accept it as being our emotional energy, our
feeling. We say, "Okay."
Next, we do that mystical thing so many people refer to as "dealing with our feelings." We appropriately respond to our
emotion. We examine the thoughts that go with it, and we accept them without repression or censorship. 4
Then, we decide whether there is a next step. This is where we do our judging. This is where our moral code comes into