“My Feelings are Valid”: The Misconception

“My feelings are valid.” 

I hear this sentiment often. Usually from people who are trying to justify controlling other people’s behavior.

“This thing you are doing/saying/feeling causes me to feel hurt/angry/scared, so you shouldn’t do/say/feel that thing anymore.”

In the documentary, The Wisdom of Trauma, Gabor Mate defines trauma as essentially responding to a present moment as if it were the past.

Yes, your feelings are valid, and real… to the moment the trauma was created --

But rarely is this emotional echo relevant or appropriate to the moment that is re-triggering it.

Even more enlightening is the understanding that this emotional echo is actually the nervous system’s memory of an emotion that you had in the past. Let that sink in for a moment. The nervous system’s memory of an emotion…

It takes mindfulness and intention, but you have a choice whether to let that memory surface in the moment or to make another choice for yourself.

To be clear, sometimes we are consciously aware of the origin of the wound but most times we are not. And you don’t have to consciously remember the original wound in order to heal and release it.

It was exactly these incongruent emotional reactions to my life and the situations around me that sparked my own personal growth journey. I realized my traumas were ruling my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and I became dedicated to healing through them so I could consciously choose the way I respond to life as it unfolds in front of me.

Once we experience hurt, we go to a lot of effort to keep ourselves from feeling that pain again. And this is understandable. Pain is, well, painful.

But saving ourselves from future pain makes our (emotional) world smaller.

Pain is just one more sacred and necessary aspect of being human. From a holistic perspective, a more effective response would be to build the emotional tools that allow you to hold space for that pain - and to heal the actual wounds - rather than putting limits and controls in place that allow you to avoid the echoes of that pain.

Consider a medical professional’s response to treating a sprained ankle. Their goal is to first create an environment that triggers the body’s innate healing, and then to implement a rehabilitation protocol that will return the ankle to full strength and mobility.

So first, they deal with the injury, which means immobilizing the ankle to keep it from further damage. But not too long after that, you are instructed to start stretching the ankle and then gently using it - not to the point of pain where you risk re-injury, but to a point of challenge or discomfort - because if you don’t push yourself, you risk the ligaments remaining over-contracted for good, which means losing strength and range of motion.

No one teaches us this, but the same approach to healing is meant to be applied to emotional injury (trauma).

When you are first emotionally injured, it’s natural and correct to pull back entirely to a place of safety to allow your mind and body to rest - to immobilize yourself. But if you stay in this emotionally contracted place for too long, you lose both your power and the ability to experience your full range of e-motions, including ecstatic joy and pleasure.

At some point after the trauma, it is necessary to stretch your emotional ligaments to the point of challenge and discomfort, so that, over time, you regain emotional strength and flexibility.

Your feelings are absolutely valid. But ask yourself if they are holding you back or shrinking your world...

You are meant to protect yourself, of course, when you are first wounded (emotionally or otherwise). But remember that you aren’t meant to stay there for too long. 

You are your first best resource. Learning how to become aware and accountable for your own feelings, and to hold space for your younger, wounded self is one of the secrets to radical wholeness.

You can totally learn to do this on your own, like I did. Or you can let me teach you.

If you ever need me, you know how to find me.

In wholeness,

Sharon Marie Scott

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