I want to start by retiring a sentence, because I don't think we've quite noticed how much damage it's done.
Don't be angry.
Also: don't be sad. Don't cry. Calm down. You're overreacting. Stop being so sensitive.
Each of these sentences carries a hidden assumption, that some feelings are bad, and that being a functional adult means making the bad ones go away. Learning to muscle through them. Learning not to have them. Suppressing until we look neutral.
I think that assumption is one of the more quietly damaging inheritances our culture has handed down, and I think it is almost criminal what it has done to people's relationship with their own inner lives. There are no bad emotions. There are emotions we'd rather not be feeling. There are emotions that arrive at inconvenient times. There are emotions that overwhelm. But the feeling itself is never the failure. The feeling is information.
I think about it the way I learned about pH in chemistry class, with those small strips of litmus paper that change color based on the acidity of the solution they touch. You don't argue with a pH reading. You don't tell the strip it's being dramatic. You don't try to make the color change by wishing. You read it. Because the reading is the reading. The strip didn't invent the chemistry. It just measured it.
Your emotions are the same. The reading is the reading.
So if we're going to take them seriously, let's actually learn how to read them. There are four I return to most often in session. There are others, and we can bring them in as we go, but these four cover most of the ground. I've given each its own short read, so none of it is too much at once:
- Anger: something is wrong.
- Fear: something is dangerous.
- Sadness: something mattered that has been lost.
- Happiness: something is going right.
Before you decide what to do with any feeling, before you act on it, suppress it, share it, hide it, fix it, the first question is what it's telling you. Not: how do I make this go away. Not: what does this mean about me. Just: what is this trying to say?
That is the reading. And the reading is almost always trying to help you.