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| Your Feelings Are Valid |
by Trime Persinger
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Conflict, by its very nature, entails negative feelings. There's no way around this. Even in the most professional settings, when people disagree over important issues (or even many minor ones) they become aroused. They may not show it, but feelings are present nevertheless.
We are emotional creatures. Feelings are an important part of the fabric of our lives. They provide texture and color. They help us to form relationships and they provide us with the raw material for insight and growth. It's not that emotions are good per se-they're neither good nor bad. It just happens to be true that they permeate our experience day by day, often moment by moment.
We would do well to acknowledge the emotions we experience when we're in conflict. Even if you just acknowledge your feelings to yourself, it gives you a better handle on the situation. For when you know that you're upset or angry, you can make choices about how you deal with these feelings. Being upset or angry and not recognizing the feelings makes it much harder to stay sane. Ironically, you can "keep your cool" much better when you know that you're angry.
While your feelings are valid, no matter how intense or unreasonable they seem, it's important to remember that they belong to you. Your feelings are valid, but they're nobody's fault. In other words, you do not have the right to blame another person for your feelings. No matter what the other person has done, your feelings about it are yours and yours alone.
When you blame someone else for how you feel, you give away your personal power. If you believe that another person is responsible for your feelings, then you will only feel better if he changes. If he does not change, you are stuck with the feelings. These feelings are then heightened by a feeling of powerlessness, which leads to more rage or grief or both.
You can use language to reinforce your willingness to take responsibility for your feelings. The simplest way to do this is to begin sentences with "I" rather than with "You". For example, saying "I'm frustrated right now" indicates self-responsibility; "You're making me frustrated" indicates blame.
Taking full responsibility for your own feelings is hard work-it's actually much easier to blame someone else. But "owning" your feelings is very helpful in seeing things as they are. Through the process of coming to terms with your own feelings and taking responsibility for them, you become aware of painful patterns and difficult choices. As this happens more and more, you increasingly see yourself as a self-determining individual and you begin to move forward in your life in a whole new way.
As you grow and change in this way you will probably find that some people in your life will resist the changes, while others will make way for you. Change of any kind can be uncomfortable for you, and at times even scary, but stepping fully into your life in this way is ultimately enriching and empowering. Over time, you become a reference point of sanity for others.
Marianne Williamson said it best: "Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory that is within us. And as we let our light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." |
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