Resilience | Agnes Wainman | London Psychological Services
I’m not sure when it happened, but we’ve all been duped. We have been told that being “strong” is something that we should be striving for. “She’s so strong” is the highest form of praise. Now if you mean “she’s so strong, she can squat 200 lbs”, then yes! Correct use of strong! If you mean, “she’s so strong because she never seems to be fazed, never seems to have an emotional reaction, doesn’t cry at funerals” then maybe we need to start re-evaluating what “strong” means. One of the most common phrases I hear in my therapy office is “I should be stronger.” When I dig into what it means to be “stronger” the overwhelming majority actually mean:
“I don’t want to feel a normal, understandable, uncomfortable human emotion to something stressful in my life.”
We have been conditioned to believe that having emotional responses is a bad thing, when actually emotional responses are highly adaptive. We are born with a full and complete set of emotions. We may differ in temperament (early on, you can often tell who the chill baby is versus the one that’s a bit more high strung), but the basic emotions are the same. These emotions are a gift. They allow us to connect with other people. They drive behavior that is protective (ex. Run into a bear, feel fear, run!). Emotions can be messages that things we are doing aren’t good or healthy for us. Emotions, even the most uncomfortable and intense, can be useful.
Somehow along the way though, we have been conditioned to view emotional responses as some sort of personality flaw. Actually, we view *negative* emotional responses as being weak. Be happy, be pleasant, say that you’re fine through clenched teeth, but never, ever admit to struggling.
This is crap.
This is not being strong.
This is emotional avoidance and it is not good.
When we try to avoid, ignore, deny or squish down our feelings, we are interfering with the emotional system. Just because we pretend that the feeling is not there, this does not mean it just disappears. They come out some way. Maybe you start feeling physical symptoms like headaches or stomach upset. You may start feeling anxious or on the verge of tears all the time, even if there is no clear trigger. You may keep it together most of the time, but occasionally explode at the smallest provocation (road rage, anyone?). You may have a hard time falling or staying asleep. Our emotional system is annoyingly brilliant; there is no way to trick it.
On the other hand, healthy emotional expression does not mean that we can throw a tantrum at the slightest disappointment. Emotional health requires a healthy dose of emotional regulation. We need to learn how to self-soothe when we are distressed. We do need to sometimes delay our emotional expression (delay, not avoid completely!). We don’t need to tell everyone our most inner struggles. We do need to allow ourselves to feel our feelings, stop the avoidance, the judgment, the criticism. Your feelings are there for a reason. Not sure what those reasons are anymore? That’s probably a sign that there’s been a bit of emotional interference going on and we’ve got some work to do to realign things. Let’s ditch the “strong” myth and start getting real about our feelings.