Breaking Through with Dr. Shemena Johnson: Understanding Feelings and Thoughts

I'm your host , dr Shamina , and I'm just really happy to be back . So just a little bit . I know I've been away for a bit , some months , and who knew that to begin writing a book takes a lot of time and effort and energy , and so that's what I've been doing and it's been really refreshing to have a pause .

But also , with that pause , it gave me a lot of rejuvenated thoughts and ideas about continuing , you know , with the podcast . So I'm really glad to be back and thank you for tuning in again .

So I'm going to pick up where I left off , you know , in the Breaking Through series , because I feel like it's very helpful in just having a little bit of a cursory review on just understanding yourself , and that's why I called it Breaking Through . So today , in this podcast of Breaking Through , I'm going to talk about feelings and thoughts .

The focus is going to be on understanding and making meaning of feelings , which means you no longer can get stuck , but you can respond to your feelings appropriately and move through them and not be scared or shocked when feelings come up , because they're just a normal part of the human experience . So here we go , let's dive in .

So the role of feelings and thoughts in our everyday experiences brings , I think of us versus what happens outside of us , what happens in your partner versus what happens inside of you family members .

I think it's all so important because it can be so confusing when you are communicating with individuals and certain feelings get evoked inside of you and you're wondering who has the feelings . Certain feelings get evoked inside of you and you're wondering who has the feelings . So I think it's very important to understand your own feelings first of all .

So just consider this Imagine the ability to be able to experience a sense of vitality and ease and navigating relationships . The vitality and ease and navigating relationships where you function with a strong sense of understanding who you are on a very deep level . Does that sound appealing ? I think so .

Every one of us wants to be in the driver's seat when it comes to our lives and navigating our relationships . So when you can have a really strong sense of understanding yourself on a deep level . It's because you're learning to identify what you are feeling , which is an important pathway to understanding your own emotional experiences and what makes you unique .

You know what hurts inside , what needs attention and what one can do to resolve the issue . When you disavow your feelings or emotional expression because of prescribed and expected ways of being , the feelings have to go somewhere . They just don't go away . They show up in other ways that can often lead to sadness or depression .

You know , one of the most adult things one can do is make our feelings known to ourselves and even to others . You know , I often hear from adults in my practice that grew up in environments where you know their feelings were often criticized or dismissed , distorted or even there was a lack of curiosity from others or their parents .

You know about how or what they feel , and so a lot of times you get the message that you feel that you don't have a right to even express your feelings , to express fear , to express anger , sadness , happiness , excitement or even joy , and so when you turn away from your feelings , it becomes a source of pain and a source of shame , and you have to ask

yourself where did I learn to turn away or become blind to the one thing that makes me a human being ? Who set the tone for that ? You know there's so many factors that influence that . Sometimes the reasons lie within our family , sometimes they lie within the culture's expectations or even inferences from society at large .

But when we become an adult , it becomes very personal , because you now become the responsible party for unlearning what you've learned . So when we repeat these learned behaviors of expression or the non-expression of feelings , they do take on a meaning . You know they become intertwined to some degree in the context of our social and intimate relationships .

They dictate what becomes what is normal versus what is dysfunctional . So let's take a more focused view on what I'm talking about . Follow me here . Think about this Like when we come into this world , we come into this world completely dependent upon others for our survival .

We look to those tasks with caring for us , for guidance on the rules of engagement , on how to manage our emotions and what is expected and also what is disapproved of , and so we spend probably about the first quarter of our lives deciding what parts of ourselves to amputate or ignore in our lives in order to survive our circumstances .

Because , keep in mind , we're dependent upon others for our survival .

It's not like you can just leave your home when you're a child and just go stay at the Hilton if things go awry , but when you reach adulthood , we spend the rest of our lives , from that moment forward , trying to recover those same emotions that were banished away from our psychological space .

And that's the good part , because that's when you have a choice on how to be . You see , when we're children and we're just coming into this world , and it's like a big ball of energy .

Sometimes you might notice , you know your parents might disapprove of certain expressions , of feelings or behaviors , like I remember a lot of times I heard with my parents like can't you be still ? There's nothing for you to cry about ? That's not how you feel .

I was always being told how I was supposed to feel , or I'll give you something to cry about , or good girls , don't talk about that . That's not what you feel .

Fill in the blank , you feel this , you're happy , you're this , and so soon you get the message that there's a version of me that I need to be in order to manage and to survive in my circumstances . But also you put those emotions aside to appease those around you . But then you go to high school and sometimes these run in parallel .

But then you also have being in high school and you have the peer pressure from the students you know on how to be and how to behave . You know , when I think of being in high school , I was I really was that nice girl , you know , the good girl with the good grades , and I worked really hard and I wanted to fit in with others and try .

I was constantly trying to be acceptable and liked by other people , constantly trying to be acceptable and liked by other people . And you know , some of that pattern was attributed to my race , being a Black woman , and some of that is attributed to my family and also societal conditioning .

But the driving force in my psychology was trying , always trying trying to be liked , trying to be appreciated by the other , trying to be valued , soon . That's what I was always consumed with , of just trying , what I was always consumed with , of just trying . But also , even with trying , I never got a chance to really question myself .

You see , if it's the driving force of trying , all the time I don't ask myself is this what I really want to do ? How do I feel about wanting to be liked . Is this the kind of relationship I want to have ? I don't ask myself those questions , I'm just kind of on autopilot of . This is what I need to do .

But also it became a losing strategy , because if you're pumping all of this energy into others , then you're pumping yourself empty , all in the interest of trying to be liked . But then the question you have to ask yourself if you're trying so hard to be liked , what do you sacrifice in that quest ?

For some of us , including myself , during that time you end up denying your own needs and you end up disavowing other feelings , such as feeling sad that I have to do this in the first place , you know . But then you move forward and you reach adulthood and you attempt to have , you have intimate relationships with the parts of yourself that are left .

So disavowing parts of yourself leaves an indelible mark on your psyche . Did you sacrifice spontaneity in your life for self-discipline , autonomy for loyalty , expression of feelings for silence and approval ? How do you learn to do things differently ?

Now , you see , recovering the lost parts and the associated emotions becomes a pathway to really understanding yourself , because if you don't have self-awareness of your emotions , it's difficult to make significant internal and long-lasting changes .

It's like when you can say to yourself I feel angry , I feel sad , or I am a little anxious , or I'm capable of feeling jealousy , or I can be irrational , or I can be competitive , or I realize there's a dark side to me . Again , if you notice the language I'm using , I , I , I , I feel , because that is also a part of who we are .

It's a part of our identity . It's like I'm owning my feelings part of our identity . It's like I'm owning my feelings . Once you can acknowledge your feelings , that is where the juice is . That's when the world really opens up to you . Also , that is when you can really see yourself very clearly , all the emotions that are percolating inside of you .

When emotions are not permitted to be experienced or expressed based on learned behavior or conditioning , or simply when our parents or other adults invalidate them , they get repressed . And remember , as I said earlier , they don't just go away . They go somewhere else , but they don't go away .

They come out in little drips and drabs in other ways , but when they get repressed , there goes our sense of self as well . So we can't change anything that we deny within ourselves .

So the idea of building that awareness and acknowledging your thoughts and feelings is where change can happen , because we have to be able to be vulnerable to ourselves and acknowledge those feelings so that we can change them . So just a few questions of I'm going to help you turn the focus on yourself .

What are some of the dominant messages you grew up regarding expressing your own feelings ? What was your family's attitude towards the expression of feelings ? Were the feelings encouraged or were they negated ? How did you feel about that and what parts of that do you want to change about your life today ? So that's all I got .

Until next time , take care , be well . I hope you enjoyed this episode of Dark Matters with Dr Shamina . Thank you for listening in . You can find me at shaminajohnsoncom . All the links of where you can find me are in the show summary . Come back often and make sure you subscribe , rate and review , because I'd love to hear your comments .

And remember either you deal with your feelings or they deal with you . See you guys soon .