NVC

Re-examine all that you have been told . . . dismiss that which insults your soul. Whatever satisfies your soul is the truth. —Walt Whitman Honoring Our Feelings Do you ever feel ashamed to admit how you feel about something? Do you ever say to yourself, “I shouldn’t feel that way”? Here’s the thing. Feelings aren’t good or bad, positive or negative, or even big or little. They are simply how you feel. If someone accidentally elbows you, you might feel pain. You might recognize and appreciate that the person didn’t intend to stick his elbow in your side, but it still hurts. How you express the pain could differ. Some of us would yell at the top of our lungs. Others might simply say “ouch” and ask the person to remove their elbow. No matter how we express it, though, the feeling of pain stays the same. Emotions operate similarly. You don’t feel too much or have feelings that are too big. Maybe the way you express them is bigger than you enjoy, but the feelings themselves aren’t too big. I used to think I was too passionate because I saw that my passion turned people off. Yet a friend told me that if I were to diminish my passion, I would lose one of the most positive aspects of my personality. Years later, I began to understand that it wasn’t my passion that turned people off; it was the way I expressed it. As a result, I changed my behaviors, not my feelings of passion. The next time you notice yourself discounting your feelings or feel embarrassed about them, try to remember that your feelings “just are.” Then determine whether you’d like to change the way you express them.