The way you torture yourself

I grew up with difficulty in expressing all my feelings, mainly because my father struggled with communicating his and that was passed down. He would bottle up in shame and anger and then explode. The funny thing is my dad is deeply emotional and sensitive. He’s warm hearted, caring and easily moved to tears when witnessing something touching. In fact, he doesn’t even hide his tears, but he learned from childhood to hide what could be considered weak, especially fear, fear of failure. So he would try to handle problems on his own in the traditional patriarchal ideals passed down from generation to generation. If he felt like he wasn’t enough, enough as a husband, father, brother or son, he would build a volcano of repressed frustration and then erupt. Most often, it was things he believed about himself, that would play in his head or that he would hear through passive aggressive comments and family expectations as the eldest son. It was a double-edged sword - the privilege and pressure of being the eldest, the unforgiving and heavy duties placed upon his shoulders.

Now, in my case, I struggled with making mistakes, since it was often tied to shame, and I’d be extra hard on myself. It’s thanks to daily meditation and my deep dive into healing and growing that I was able to recognize all of this without judgment, neither for myself nor for my dad. He was a victim of the traditional culture himself, as many of us are. This plays a part in the social environment that contributes to the kinds of thoughts we hold and how we feel about ourselves. The reality is that your well-being is influenced by several factors. According to the five-part model of CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), these include your environment, mood, thoughts, behavior and physical reactions (1). Those five things are inter-connected and impact your life experience, whether for example that means you feel well, or struggle with rage, anxiety or depression. Recognizing one of those parts can allow you to recognize the others and understand yourself better so you can bring positive changes to your life, and even the lives of others in your circle. As you grow, others grow. That’s exactly what happened with my dad. The patterns I was able to observe in myself allowed me to better see them in him, which ended up helping him heal and grow as well. All of that contributed to a growth in his relationship with my mother and my siblings, by the very fact that his behavior was changing. And it was changing because his thoughts about himself were changing. Those new thoughts now helped to change his mood and core beliefs about himself and the world. He was never really given the space to express his deepest wants, dreams and fears, except to my mother, but your marriage can be interfered with by in-laws and their own baggage, (your social environment, right?) and pull you back into old patterns through painful triggers. With the help of my intuitive and wise mother, we were able to gradually allow him to be more of his true self, with much less interference from old patterns. He was able to express his feelings and thoughts with more trust that it was ok to feel and think whatever he felt or thought, that it was ok to have all kinds of ideas without being told they’re either stupid or useless or ridiculous, that it was ok to be angry at something that wasn’t working and that it was ok if something wasn’t working! My dad learned that mistakes are unforgivable! Hey, that shit was scary for me to experience as a child! “Why did you make that mistake?! You should know better!” But you know what, I think it’s scarier to tell that to yourself! I find it even more painful to punish yourself over your own mistakes. My dad would hold on to the past and often feel regret, because the idea was that it’s too late! And what does that lead to? Resentment, frustration, and sometimes depression - when it all implodes into self-loathing.

That’s a lot of personal unpacking I’m doing, but I know you’re reading this and likely have experienced something with which this resonates. A lot of us as children experience shame and bottling up of feelings under the repressive authority of parents who demand our unquestioned obedience, only to eventually realize they’re torturing themselves in the first place. It’s a long-ass chain that can go back generations. Somebody’s gotta break that chain. I had enough courage to do that. It’s still a process. It doesn’t just end overnight. Took me years of bonding with my dad to allow for healing and growth. It was a new kind of bonding, because we were pretty close, but there had been a kind of barrier that was there because of his repressed emotions. By helping him, I was able to make peace with my own inherited patterns, like the shame I felt when making mistakes. I allowed myself to accept mistakes and imperfections rather than beating myself up for coming short at times in life. I was able (and that’s in many ways thanks to meditation) to quietly and gently observe my emotions, thoughts and behavior, to connect them and see the patterns. I allowed myself to feel what I felt, and to simply recognize it, name it, even rate it on a scale of 1-10 to see what it meant in the moment and what was the healthiest thing I could do to manage it. You see, all of that is the method of allowing. It’s the way of giving space, not the way of repressing, blocking, pressuring and resisting. Feelings are meant to be felt. Everything that happens in your mind and body is meant to happen without resistance. We often think control is restraint. It’s not. Control means YOU are in control. You are risen above as the master, not held below as the slave of your own mind and emotions. You are the director. And you can only be the master of yourself by allowing yourself to be. When you resist and repress, you torture yourself. You’re telling yourself you’re not allowed to experience what you’re experiencing, so it either caves in or bursts out, causing uncontrollable damage to yourself and to your surroundings, which often includes your loved ones.

I remember when I’d feel sad or angry in my teenage years, I would often go listen to songs that matched my mood. When I was sad, it’s not a happy fun song I felt like listening to, and it’s not a goddamn positive song I felt like listening to when I was angry; it was usually heavy-metal, although that’s also because it’s badass and it made me imagine action scenes. Point is, and I’m sure you’ve done this, I’d listen to what I felt allowed me to experience and go through my feelings and mood. When you feel down, it’s ok to feel down. It’s fine and it’s natural! Ya need to fucking let the emotion in from the front door and let it out through the back door! A lot of us keep that shit in the house until it rots or completely burns the house down. From the day we're born, parents are often in the habit of telling babies and children not to cry. “Don’t cry! Don’t be sad! Don’t be angry!” In other words, stop feeling what you’re feeling. And while it might be coming from a good place, it’s teaching you to put a wall on your feelings. That wall is the first of many ways you torture yourself as an adult. Men in particular, like my father, are told to keep that shit in, especially insecurities and fears, because for some weird-ass reason it’s not manly to feel a feeling. But… it’s there. Whether you like it or not, whether you think it’s manly or not, it’s there, and it’s not gonna go away if you hide it in the basement under the assumption that you’re an inferior man for having such a feeling. 

Have you noticed there’s a kind of stigma around feelings? Have you ever apologized for being emotional, tried to hide your tears, or been mocked for crying? Have you met people who are just awkward around feelings, whether it’s their own or others? It’s like they’re worried (which is a feeling) that something bad is gonna happen. They don’t talk about their feelings or problems; they downplay their mental and emotional pain. They’ll deny it, and then they’ll project that onto others by downplaying THEIR pain. They’ll get passive-aggressive with you and call you sensitive. “Get over it! Cheer up!” You ever been told that? Yeah, it fucking sucks. Telling someone to cheer up when they’re depressed is like telling someone to get up when their leg is broken. It just hurts more. Pain is a signal, a message, and a message is meant to be heard, yet we’re taught to ignore messages. So, what happens then? They increase in frequency and they increase in intensity, because you’re not listening to them. You ignore your own messages and with it the messages of others, which creates an entire dysfunctional and disconnected society and world. I guarantee you that all the problems of the world would be significantly reduced, if not eradicated completely, if we began to listen to our internal messages. If we were taught since early childhood to connect with our feelings, to observe our mood and thoughts, to be transparent about them without judging ourselves, it would be a much more peaceful world, because all the shit you see in the world started with a state of mind, with unresolved feelings and traumas that influenced core beliefs. Recognizing your feelings also allows you to recognize the feelings of others and allows them to express them, which opens the heart to empathy and compassion, so it’s obvious that the world is made a better place through this internal healing. My experience is evidence. I started with myself, which then helped my dad, my mom and the rest of my family. My self-observation and emotional awareness is a key factor in the health of my marriage with my wonderful wife. We speak our feelings. We don’t repress them. We also speak them honestly. You see what I mean? There’s a difference between saying “I feel angry” and “fuck you, asshole!” The latter doesn’t tell me or you what’s going on. The same goes for passive-aggressive, guilt-tripping behavior and words. “Thanks. Now I have to do it because of you. Useless and irresponsible as always, huh?” is not honesty. It’s repressed frustration you’re not clearly understanding and expressing, which can cause fights, guilt and defensive reactions. It’s also not honesty when you’re bothered but say “I’m fine. No, I’m ok. Really!” and give that fake nod and smile because you’re trying not to cause problems but already started building a future explosive fight.

It’s not easy, you know, going through that process of unpacking and observing your feelings, thoughts and behavior. It’s like treating a wound; it’s painful, but if you don’t do it, it’s gonna be even more painful and it’ll stay with you for a long time, affecting how you function until it destroys you. Whenever you repress your feelings, you’re torturing yourself, and you’re torturing whoever you care about, because it pushes people away, until you find yourself alone in the dark. So, if you care to step into the light of healing and vulnerable honesty, stop the torture, and allow yourself to feel, without the interference of what people think you should or shouldn’t feel, should or shouldn’t think, and without the judgment of what kind of person you are for holding a certain feeling or thought. 

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Source:
1. Greenberger, Dennis; Padesky, Christine A (2015) Mind Over Mood.Guilford Press. p.7-12.