Feel is a Four Letter Word (When You're Insecure)

Insecure parents tend to get overwhelmed or irritated by feelings. They ignore them, shame them or misread them. How often have we all seen a parent tell their child, Stop crying. Nothing‘s wrong. You’re just being (a baby, cranky, difficult, etc.). This leaves kids feeling alone, overwhelmed, misunderstood, angry, and unable to tolerate distress. As you can imagine, as teens or adults, they often turn to food, drugs or distracting/numbing activities to avoid feelings. There may be one permissible emotion like anger or joy, but that feeling becomes over-used.

When clients come to therapy, one of the first things we do is name feelings. You seem worried, lonely, hurt, scared, etc. For insecure people, having feelings named accurately and kindly is a revelation. It feels like they are being seen and understood, maybe for the first time. The experience is deeply relieving, soothing, sustaining. It's a drink of water when you didn't realize you were dehydrated.

By seeing how the therapist responds, clients also learn the skill of recognizing and responding to their own feelings compassionately. This is what happens naturally in securely attached families. We insecures have to learn to fill this gap.
Secure parents notice facial expressions and body language, accurately naming feelings. You usually can't see your own face, but you can feel the muscles of your face as they move into a smile, a grimace, or a frown. You can feel your brow rise in surprise. You can feel your mouth tremble in fear or sadness.
You can also feel emotions in your body. The cliches we use to describe feelings can be a useful guide.

• When you're angry, you might notice your head or ears get hot. You might feel pressure like blowing your top. You might feel heat or energy in your arms or chest. This is adrenaline, a gift of your fight-or-flight response, gearing you up for battle.
• Shame, embarrassment and humiliation might leave you feeling like you want to shrink, to go full turtle and pull into your shell, to be swallowed up by the earth.
• Fear might leave you "yellow bellied," with a sick feeling in your gut. Or the hairs on you neck might stand up. Fear's cousin, anxiety, might make you edgy or fidgety, itching to run.
• Sadness may leave you choked up with tears that get stuck in your throat - especially if you've learned not to let them show. Sadness's bigger sister, depression might flatten you with the "why bother" blahs.

If you are on the reparenting road, seeking greater security from yourself, then your mission is to gentle yourself toward compassion, curiosity and acceptance. Naming your feelings without judgment conveys understanding and compassion. As you gain comfort with feelings, sitting with them in a friendly way feels soothing, safe and relieving (which you may notice in a deep breath or sigh).

Recognizing your feelings and accepting them with curiosity and self-compassion will also, in time, show you that you can tolerate and soothe your distress or disappointment. Taking the time to ease yourself through the distress will allow you to make better decisions about the messages your feelings are sending.

• When something doesn't feel right for you, you might set a different boundary.
• You might ask for more of what you want or need.

Allowing yourself to hear the messages your feelings are sending ultimately empowers you to take better care of yourself.