Accepting feelings
by gprice on Dec.15, 2009, under Acceptance
When someone comes to see me with an emotional or behavioural issue, the first thing I usually teach them is how to accept their uncomfortable feelings. I didn’t find out about this until I was in my thirties. Nobody had told me. I stumbled on it by accident while I was experimenting with ‘accepting what is’.
Little did I know then that I’d stumbled on an idea that over the following twenty years was to become the most valuable tool used in therapy today. We all experience uncomfortable feeings from time to time. Accepting them is the most powerful psychological tool anyone can develop in their life-time. It’s huge. It’s the holy grail of developing resilience in life. It should be taught in schools. www.abicord.com/what-is-is
January 4th, 2010 on 11:36 am
Various guys write about this topic but you wrote down some true words.
February 2nd, 2010 on 11:34 pm
Thanks Kalf. Let me add a few more words about why it’s so valuable to practice accepting our (uncomfortable) feelings. Most people who come to see me with emotional or behavioural problems have developed them as a result of resisting or avoiding feelings. A fright becomes a phobia because we keep avoiding whatever initially frightened us. Panic develops because we resist / fear / avoid symptoms of anxiety. Generalised anxiety develops because we get anxious about feeling anxious. OCD develops because we use rituals to contain anxiety. Depression develops, or is at least maintained, because we withdraw from life as a way of trying to cope with depressed feelings. We feed addictions to avoid the feelings that arise if we stop the behaviour. We comfort-eat to cover up uncomfortable feelings. The list goes on.
The solution to all these problems is to accept the feeling and repeatedly do the opposite of whatever the feeling is telling us to do. We need to “accept the feeling, choose the action”. Accept anxiety while doing whatever we’re anxious about; accept feelings of depression while re-engaging fully with life; stop comfort eating while fully accepting whatever feelings arise … and so on.
And how can we accept our uncomfortable feelings? By asking ourselves some questions. Is this feeling doing me any harm? No it isn’t. Nobody has ever been harmed by a feeling. Can I bear the feeling? Sure I can … for now at least. Can I accept the feeling? Yes I can. I can say to myself: ‘it’s OK to have this feeling for now’. This doesn’t mean it’s OK to have it five days, five hours, or five minutes from now. It just means it’s OK to have it as long as I have it.
When we master accepting uncomfortable feelings, we can start choosing our actions despite what we’re feeling. We can stop allowing our feelings to determine our actions. And what if we don’t have any emotional or behavioural problems? We should still practice accepting uncomfortable feelings. Acceptance nearly always diminishes the feeling. By stopping resisting our feelings, it puts us back in control. If you’re not already totally accepting your uncomfortable feelings, start now. No exception. Magic happens.
March 6th, 2010 on 6:02 pm
Interesting, I am curious what the statistics are on your first point there…
May 1st, 2010 on 12:47 pm
Anxiety and depression is one hell of a nasty disease. even if you have everything but if you have clinical depression, you are still nothing.;-`
May 13th, 2010 on 3:08 pm
Just wasting some time on Digg and I found your post . Not typically what I like to learn about, but it was absolutely worth my time. Thanks.
May 20th, 2010 on 10:44 pm
Anxiety is always curable. Some types like severe OCD can be tough, others like panic, phobia and PTSD are generally straight forward with modern techniques. Generalised anxiety, often associated with depression, is certainly resolvable and its resolution can help to resolve associated depression.
Mild to moderate depression is always resolvable. Yes, major or clinical depression can be a challenge. But again, modern approaches have taken us forward in leaps and bounds. Even CBT, the treatment of choice for depression, often struggles with major depression. Drugs and occasionally more severe interventions such as ECT can be effective, working alongside CBT. ‘Third wave’ treatments, meaning acceptance-based approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Acceptance-Action Therapy (AAT) and Mindfullness have enhanced the effectiveness of CBT in this challenging area.
Never give up. Try all the options. An unsuccessful treatment for one can be a cure for another. Learning to ‘accept what is’ and focusing on contributing to others and the world (standard AAT approaches) can alone break painful patterns.
July 10th, 2010 on 8:45 am
antidepressants works well with anxiety attacks, only problem is there are side-effects.,~’
August 29th, 2010 on 9:15 am
Side effects aren’t the only problem with using anti-depressants to deal with anxiety. Another is that they don’t cure the anxiety. At best they may suppress it as long as we’re taking the drugs. To cure the anxiety we need to ‘accept the feeling, choose the action’. In the case of anxiety, this means developing a willingness to fully experience the anxiety (for now) while we cease behaviours aimed at avoiding it. Avoidance behaviours simply re-inforce the conscious or unconscious beliefs that are driving the anxiety. Ceasing avoidance behaviours has the opposite effect. ‘Accepting the feelin’ is the core skill that enables us to change our avoidance behaviours. For advice on how to do this, see ‘What Is, Is! The Power of Positive Acceptance‘. Click on the link at the end of the post.