How do you feel? _No, really, don't bypass your emotions

How do you feel? 

This is a question I ask all the time to my friends, my family, my clients, my team, and typically I know what kind of response I’m looking for. I’m usually looking for them to tell me something about their emotions about the information that has just been shared. 

So a friend shares, Oh, I just lost my job ….. How do you feel about it?

My sister says, Oh my co-worker was mean to me…..How do you feel about it? 

A client says, My boss said I’m not getting the promotion….How do you feel about it? 

The pattern usually goes like this → something vulnerable has been shared, and then I ask What are your feelings towards that thing. 

I’m really good at this, oftentimes people tell me I’m a great listener HOWEVERRRRRRR do I listen to my own feelings? 

I’ve just recently learned about something called “delayed emotional processing”. It's basically when a person takes a significant amount of time – hours, days, weeks, or even longer (in my case, years) to feel or express emotions after a triggering event, rather than immediately. Apparently, it's your brain's way of protecting you when you’re overwhelmed or in transition. It happens a lot when someone has experienced trauma or is neurodivergent (think autism, ADHD, etc.) 

At the end of the day, it's not the end of the world, and it happens to ALOT of us. Most of us (*cough men, African parents, older sisters cough*),  just push things down or don’t deal with things because we simply don’t have time. However, for some of us, we don’t do this intentionally. We genuinely don’t experience the emotion until weeks or even months later. I remember asking my therapist, “Why am I always shocked by my emotions?” like why am I just finding out that someone did something hurtful, and I’m just now feeling the emotions of it? I genuinely love this person, so how did I allow them to say this to me….Am I just not as self-aware as I thought I was?  

Let’s do some quick maths, shall we…. 

Delayed emotional processing + people pleasing + spiritual by-passing + a lifetime of people telling me that “I’m too emotional” = REALLY downplaying how you feel….until you wake up one day with a heaviness you cannot explain. I honestly think that’s one of the reasons I write a lot, because a long time ago, I realized that writing was the only way I could actually process my emotions. 

The reality is, as I reflect on the last couple of years, I've been hurt, sad, and even angry about certain “less than ideal” situations, and I’ve swept it under the rug, and it has come out randomly, which has not been great for the people closest to me. 

Some of the ways to overcome this are just trying your best to process your emotions (talk therapy, writing, reflecting, etc.). You also have to recognize that you’re not “broken” or lack self-awareness, so you don’t have to beat yourself up about yet another thing. Another way to overcome is also through faith in Jesus Christ. I’ve been reading this book called “Don’t let the enemy sit at your table,” and it basically talks about how the devil wants to mess with your mind, accuse you of things, confuse people’s intentions, cause you to overthink, and the book says we must fight back. With God’s word, and by taking those thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ. We have to be aware that a lot of this is not happening in the physical realm but in the spiritual realm. The bible says it clearly that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” and honestly, that includes your own mind. 

So I want to commit to doing a few things: 

1. I want to stop judging my feelings….If I feel sad or jealous or “some kind of way,” I want to investigate why I’m feeling this way, instead of just saying “stop feeling this way, being jealous is an ugly feeling, you shouldn’t have those feelings.” It should just be like “ok, I'm jealous, why? What is it signalling? Where in my life am I feeling insecure?” 

2. I want to surrender my feelings to God. I think what this looks like is not trying to “fix” myself, but just sayin,g “lord, I feel sad that my friend didn’t respond to my text, it makes me feel abandoned, will you remind me that I am not abandoned?”

3. I want to share more with the people around me. Like, actually have the hard conversations like “hey, I’m feeling X, Y, and Z, some of it is from me and my weird abandonment or people pleasing, and some of it is on you because you said something hurtful”. I’m going to assume positive intent, but I’m not going to hold the full weight of this hurt, so here is your part. 

4. I also want to give grace to others and to myself, we are just navigating this stage of our lives for the first time. 

To be honest, I'm scared, and I know it’s not going to be perfect, but I just want to try. 

If you are like me and have a hard time being honest with yourself about how you feel, or you find yourself rehearsing conversations in the shower on how you should have stood up for yourself, or simply just don’t deal well with hard things, use this blog post as a sign to start. Stop distancing yourself from others and stop “cutting people off”. Stop exploding on people and stop imploding on yourself. Process your emotions, and hopefully, we will start to see a breakthrough. 

If you’re too scared to “go there” (I know it can feel like opening Pandora’s box), maybe seek professional help from a therapist or a friend who is safe to say things to. Whatever you do, don’t keep it in your body. That’s how people get sick.

Anyway, I’m done! I hope this was helpful.....I hope you have a lovely day.

I’ll see you in the next one,

Ibiyemi