Do you think your feelings are supposed to make sense? Do you try to talk yourself out of your emotions if you think they’re unjustified or invalid?
If this is you, you’re probably doing this for a good reason, yet there’s a downside to doing so you may not recognize.
Often, when clients express disappointment in their relationships, admit to feeling sad or lonely, or are frustrated with something someone has said or done, they are quick to dismiss their emotions either as invalid or as an overreaction.
Many times, we have feelings or desires that seem illogical or make us feel guilty. We believe we shouldn’t feel the way we do.
We may feel that if we can’t justify our feelings or their intensity as making sense “objectively”, or as being a result of something intentional someone has done (or not done), we feel a need to minimize, downplay, or dismiss them.
I see this in real time in sessions with some of my clients. They do share their feelings with me, but these disclosures are inevitably followed with the word “but…”, almost immediately, followed by some sort of rationalization or explanation that reverses or invalidates the feeling they expressed.
For example, “My husband never spends time with me and I’m so lonely. But…it’s not really his fault, he can’t help it that he’s so busy.”
Or, “My wife always seems tired and disinterested when I walk in the door from work…but of course she can’t help it after looking after the little ones all day.”
Or, “I’m really hurt that my friends never invite me to go out with them. But, it’s probably not their fault because they all have so much going on”. Etc, etc.
Explaining away our feelings by minimizing our right to feel them, justifying why we shouldn’t have them, or defending the person who hurt us involves moving away from being in touch with our emotions, to using cognition and thinking to analyze them away.
This involves a move away from using our left brains to try to articulate our right brain experiences, to using our left brains to try to talk ourselves out of or distract from our right brain experiences. It’s a move away from integration and towards alienation (from our experiential selves). We don’t process our feelings fully and we don’t allow ourselves the benefits of taking in comfort or co-regulation from others, when we do this. We suppress or intellectualize instead of figuring out what our emotions are trying to signal us to do.
This tendency to intellectualize emotions is at times an important self-regulation strategy, when more effective ones are not or have not been available. People often learn to minimize their feelings as a way of calming themselves, when they weren’t taught how to handle their emotions in secure attachment relationship experiences. Perhaps those around them (especially caregivers) didn’t know how to provide comfort, or took offense when told that needs weren’t met by them, or became dysregulated themselves when their child’s emotions were expressed, leading the child (now adult) to self-soothe by invalidating their own feelings or trying to talk themselves out of them.
While this strategy may at times provide temporary relief, it ultimately involves a person dismissing their true inner experiences, and prevents them from truly addressing their needs or working through their emotions. Whether it’s a matter of effectively grieving, seeking change, or connecting with others to work through what the emotions are saying, these necessary steps are skipped when the left brain takes over too quickly or automatically, alienating a person from their true, emotional self.
If you recognize this pattern in yourself, it may be worth addressing. This habit can hold you back from forming close relationships and getting your needs met, as well as from receiving the support and validation you need. You may feel disconnected from yourself, from others, or from your own needs; guilty for being frustrated, sad, or resentful; or isolated and lonely. It’s not too late to get back in touch with the true you inside, so feel free to start with that now…