Do you ever find yourself saying, “Yes, they hurt me, but I’m fine.” Or how about, “It hurts, but there are people who have it much, much worse than me.” We sometimes have a tendency to minimize our own feelings or pain and often do it by comparing our experience to someone else’s.
Someone else having pain or going through a rough time doesn’t negate your own. We can gloss over our experiences by comparing it to someone else who has it “worse” than we do. It’s one thing to have perspective and context with our feelings, but it’s another to use misuse that perspective to shame or downplay your own emotions. Because we are basically saying to ourselves, “my feelings don’t matter.”
We need to stop minimizing our feelings. We are not robots without feelings. Feel what you feel – if something makes you angry, you can be angry without saying, “well, I shouldn’t complain because other people have it much worse.” Use perspective to not allow yourself to stay angry or sad for extended periods of time.
Your challenge today is to not minimize your feelings. Imagine if you just gave yourself permission to feel what you feel? Without comparison or fear of judgement? Even in pain, that would probably feel good.
**Eric has his Masters in Counseling and when not on B105.7 works as a private practice counselor**
Photo Credit: Getty Images/Prostock-Studio
