Leaning Into Discomfort
“I’m tired of feeling sad all the time.” “I just want to be happy.” “My life would be so much better if I just didn’t feel this way.”
People often come to therapy because they have painful feelings—and they are hoping that therapy will help those feelings go away. When we are experiencing depression, grief, fear, anger, or another troubling emotion, it might seem as if those feelings serve no purpose. In fact it might seem as if we would be better off without any negative emotions at all.
Unfortunately, we are unable to selectively numb feelings. All feelings—both the ones we may label “good” and those we think of as more negative—are all part of our human experience. If we numb one feeling, we numb them all. And conversely if we want to feel one feeling, we are opening ourselves to feeling them all as well.
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