Why do I feel this way?

Why do I feel this way?

It's not usual for me to be using the same phrase during any given week, but I caught myself saying this during many of my sessions:

"You're allowed to feel this way"

I wonder at what point in our lives we learned that it was wrong to feel. For example, this week alone I had three clients who had recently gone through a break up and they were missing their ex-partners. They thought they were doing something wrong by missing them. 

"He wasn't a great boyfriend the whole time. There were definitely moments when I knew he wasn't the one. I needed to let him go, it was the best decision for me.. yet I miss him. Why?"

"She was so manipulative, but I enjoyed the times when things were good between us. Now that she's not here, I'm relieved but I'm sad most of the time."

Well, when we've spent a significant amount of time with someone and we've invested so much emotion into a relationship, and that relationship no longer there, how else are you supposed to feel? Of course we're going to be upset, sad, disappointed, longing etc. Aren't you supposed to feel this way? What does it say about you and your relationship if you didn't feel that way? Since when was it "wrong" to miss someone?

One thing that I noticed that was common between all of them was that they were unsure if they should be sharing these feelings with their friends. They didn't want their friends to judge them for feeling this way. They already knew that they would be unempathic about feeling sad about the dissolution of the relationship. They worried that their friends would look at them differently for revealing their vulnerability. In challenging these thoughts, we all came to the conclusion that this judgement doesn't matter. Your friends are still going to be your friends regardless of how you feel about a break up.

Next time you're feeling any type of way, whether it makes you feel good or bad, don't question it. It's an emotion. We forget that we're human and feeling emotions is a natural process. Don't judge yourself for feelings a type of way. We're allowed to have emotions. We're allowed to feel.