What is This That I Am Feeling?
Once, I had a client who I couldn’t help. No matter what I tried, she kept dwelling on the same thing. She kept saying how she felt something but she wasn’t sure what she felt. I started looking into this and wondered if it was a real thing and it is. People experience unknown feelings all the time. Psychologist John Grohol gives reasons why people have difficulty expressing their own emotions.Here are just a few to name.
We Seek Emotional Perfectionism
You might wonder, what is emotional perfectionism? It’s when we hold ourselves to an emotional standard and dismiss any negative feelings. We feel the need to have excessive amount control over our feelings dictating what’s right from what’s wrong. When someone is an emotional perfectionist, they believe that they should always be rational. This causes them to be in a pitfall. As they try to be rational, they become even more irrational since they don’t know how to be rational from the start.
Nothing Seems to Give
We have tried many different techniques, read many books and have gone to counseling even. However, nothing seems to help us understand what we are feeling. We may depict that it’s one thing however that one could be something else. Sadly, your outcome depends on your momentum of hopelessness and giving up.
Obsessive Need to Solve the Problem
When we try to solve the problem of figuring out the unknown, it can turn into an obsession, or worse an addiction. It’s the mantra of “I won’t stop until I figure this out!” If this becomes cyclical, then we don’t give ourselves options to solve it any other way. It’s okay to want to figure out what is bothering you. It’s not okay to waste your time on it. If this persists, take a break and do something you enjoy and then come back to it once you’ve had clarity.
In general, learning to express what you feel can go a long way into changing that behavior. Look at these reasons. Which one mostly relates to you? It’s okay if it’s all of the above. Next time you feel overwhelmed, or stuck in a rut, take initiative of these reasons and how you can alleviate the excess stress you have been feeling. If you need help, our counselors are right here with you.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”~Unknown
