Mike Robbins

Infusing Life and Business with Authenticity and Appreciation

emotions

Honor Your Emotions

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I sometimes find it challenging to honor (and actually feel) my own emotions – especially if what I feel seems at odds with other people or my emotions don’t seem “appropriate” for the situation. 

I’m not someone who tends to hold back from sharing my honest thoughts, opinions, and some feelings.

However, I have noticed that certain feelings can be challenging for me to feel and express, and sometimes I find myself worrying, for a variety of reasons, that my emotions aren’t as important as those of others.

It has been humbling to come to this realization about myself in recent years.  But, it has also been incredibly liberating to see this pattern and to remind myself that my feelings are just as important as anyone else’s.

When You Honor Your Emotions, You Are True to Yourself

When we honor our emotions, it isn’t about being self-absorbed, arrogant, or better than anyone—it’s really about being true to ourselves, honest with how we feel and what we want, and willing to engage in authentic conversations with other people.

Feeling our feelings, authentically, is essential to our mental, emotional, and even physical well being.

So why can it be so challenging to truly feel our emotions? Some of the primary reasons for this are:

  • We worry that people won’t like or approve of us
  • We don’t authentically value ourselves or give ourselves permission to feel
  • We’ve learned to put other people’s needs, desires, and feelings ahead of our own
  • We’re not comfortable feeling and expressing certain emotions
  • We don’t want to take up too much space and fear we might be considered “intense” or “high maintenance.”
  • We have not learned healthy ways to feel and express our true emotions
  • We worry that people will see us as selfish or overly emotional

When we don’t honor our emotions, we sell ourselves short in a painful and damaging way. By not being real, we can create unhealthy separation from the most important people in our lives, including ourselves.. 

How to Honor Your Emotions

Here are a few things you can do to enhance your capacity to honor and fee your own emotions in a healthy and productive way.

1. Be Real About How You Truly Feel 

The first step of any process is always about being real with ourselves. The more willing we are to be honest about what we truly feel and want, the more ability we’ll have to honor ourselves and be authentic with others. 

One way I get in touch with my feelings is through journaling. It’s not about justifying how we feel to anyone else; it’s about being real with ourselves and our emotions.

2. Stop Judging Yourself 

One of the biggest things that can get in your way in life is self-judgment. Critical thoughts actually suppress your true feelings. Be real with yourself, honor what’s true for you…don’t judge it.

3. Give Yourself Permission to Feel

Because of our self-judgment, we sometimes don’t give ourselves permission to feel—especially certain emotions. 

Remember: all human emotions have value and can benefit us if we’re willing to feel them in an authentic and healthy way. 

To honor your emotions, you must give yourself permission to feel what you’re feeling. Doing so allows you to move through your emotions in ways that can serve you, your relationships, and your life. 

4. Let Go of Your “Story” 

We all have a story.

Many of us, myself included, feel attached to our “story.” We love all of the drama and details that make up the relationships, situations, and circumstances in our lives (both past and present). 

Your life story is important, but you want to be careful not to get too caught up in it.

Where we have real power is in feeling our emotions authentically, not just talking about them, rationalizing them, or explaining them – but in simply feeling them. 

Human emotions are not sustainable – especially if they are felt honestly. It only takes about a minute or two to feel and move through an emotion genuinely. However, when we attach an emotion to a story, we don’t allow ourselves to truly feel it and thus keep it stuck in place.

5. Get Emotional Support

As important as our emotions are to our lives, well-being, and relationships, sadly, we don’t get a lot of emotional training in life.

We may not have built-in, healthy emotional support mechanisms in our daily lives. 

There are, however, many ways we can find or enhance our emotional support. The key is for us to utilize these consistently and authentically and make sure they are empowering us to honor ourselves and our emotional experiences in life.

It is so important to honor your emotions. By honoring your emotions, you can create inner peace, be true to yourself, and build better relationships.

What do you do to honor your emotions in a healthy way? What makes this challenging for you? 

Share your thoughts, action ideas, insights, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. In addition, I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. Finally, as an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

This article was published on September 16, 2015, and has been updated for 2021.

Do You Embrace Change?

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How do you feel about change?  If you’re anything like me, you probably have mixed feelings about it.  While it often depends on our perception of the type of change – big or small, good or bad, needed or unnecessary, easy or hard, etc. – most of us seek and fear change simultaneously.

I’ve recently been dealing with quite a bit of change in my life – both big and small.  Building my new website, which on the one hand is a pretty small change in the scheme of things, ended up being a very big change for me and allowed me to take a deeper look at a number of things about myself, including my relationship to change in general.

The decision to create a new website was pretty simple and clear – my old one was outdated and a new one was long overdue.  In practical terms, not having an updated website was probably costing me some business and credibility.  In addition, the type of website needed for my business is pretty simple and straightforward.

However, the actual process of creating the new website (even though it’s something I’ve done a few times in the past and was eager to do now on many levels) posed two major challenges for me personally.

First of all, I tend to be a creature of habit, especially when it comes to things I don’t totally understand or have the skills to do myself (like build new websites).  Instead of embracing change with technology, I often find myself avoiding the uncomfortable feelings associated with not knowing things or being dependent upon others to do what I don’t have the skills to do myself.

Second of all, the biggest reason I’ve avoided creating a new website for the past few years has been my resistance to getting new photos taken and new videos filmed.  As I’ve written about before, one of the most significant ways self criticism shows up in my life is related to my appearance.  Getting photos taken and watching video of myself has never been my favorite thing, but in the past few years it has become even more challenging for me as my aging process has included the thinning of my hair – a change I’ve had a hard time embracing and something I’ve definitely considered “bad.”

The thought of getting new photos taken and posting updated videos of myself online has often been accompanied by the voice of my inner-adolescent saying mean things to me like, “You’re ugly,” “People will laugh at you,” “No one will take you seriously,” “You don’t look as good as you used to,” “You should be ashamed of yourself,” and more.  Not fun or kind at all – maybe you can relate to this in your own life?

While I have chosen to “embrace” the change in my appearance in my real life by shaving off most of what’s left of the hair on my head, something about posting new photos and videos on my website seemed even more scary and real to me – hence my resistance and fear to actually doing it for the past few years.

Going through the process of confronting these fears (i.e. getting the new photos and videos done) wasn’t all that easy or fun.  However, like most things in life, facing these fears has been incredibly liberating and not nearly as painful as I thought it would be.

While I can’t honestly say that I’ve completely transformed my relationship to my appearance and made peace with how I look, I can say that this process has been a big step for me in embracing the changes to my appearance (and to myself overall), and has enhanced my capacity for embracing change in general at a deeper level.

Our ability or inability to deal with change effectively is directly related to our relationship to change and our relationship to ourselves.  We spend a great deal of time focusing on the circumstances, situations, and details of the particular changes we’re facing, instead of taking a deeper look at what’s going on for us emotionally, which is where both the impact and the resiliency needed to deal with the change exists.

Here are a few things to think about and do to enhance your ability to embrace change:

– Acknowledge and express your emotions.  Change is fundamentally an emotional phenomenon, much more than a practical or logistical one.  Whenever we’re dealing with change – big or small, good or bad – it’s our emotions that drive both our experience as well as our effectiveness in dealing with it (or lack thereof).  The more willing we are to acknowledge, own, and express the real emotions we’re feeling in relation to the change itself, the more able we are to both move through and learn from the change we’re facing in a positive way.

– Get support from others.  It’s always easier to deal with change when we remember that we’re not alone.  Whether it’s practical support, emotional support, or both – we always have people around us we can reach out to and ask for help.  Many things that are scary and challenging for us are easy for others.  Remembering that we can lean on others when we’re going through change is essential for our own well-being, sanity, and overall success.

– Take conscious and courageous action.  Staying in action, in a conscious and courageous way, is an essential aspect of moving through change effectively.  We sometimes get stuck in fear, perfectionism, or both.  When we stop taking action, it’s easy for the critical voice in our head (the “Gremlin”) to take over and convince us that we can’t do it, everything is messed up, it won’t work out, etc.  If we let the Gremlin take over, we give away our power.  By staying in action and doing so in a mindful and bold way (not simply rushing around to avoid our feelings or just doing things in our comfort zones), we remind ourselves that we have the power to deal with whatever change we’re facing.  As the late Susan Jeffers taught us all through her bestselling book, one of the best things we can do in life is “feel the fear, and do it anyway.”

As the saying goes, “the only constant in life is change.”  It seems that now more than ever, so many of us are dealing with change in our lives personally, professionally, and all around us.  If we’re willing to address these changes with a sense of authenticity, compassion, and courage – remembering that it’s not about being perfect, it’s about being real – we give ourselves a chance to not only deal with change effectively, but to embrace it in a way that allows us to grow, develop, and become more of who we truly are.

What changes are you currently facing?  How are you embracing them (or not)?  What support do you need?  Share your thoughts, insights, comments, questions, or advice here on my blog in the “leave a reply” section below!

The Benefits of Tears

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Something extraordinary happened at Candlestick Park in San Francisco two Saturdays ago, January 14th.  Sure it was an amazing ending to an NFL playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and the New Orleans Saints (which the Niners won in dramatic fashion, making all of us fans here in the Bay Area very happy); but the monumental win wasn’t was made it so remarkable to me.

As Vernon Davis, the tight end for the Niners who caught the game-winning touchdown, came running off the field, tears were streaming down his face.  He came to the sidelines and was embraced by his head coach, Jim Harbaugh, in a huge bear hug.  Coach Harbaugh hugged him for quite a while and spoke into his ear in what I can only imagine was an expression of authentic appreciation and celebration.  It was a beautiful and moving moment that transcended football and even sports – it was about courageous triumph, raw human emotion, and vulnerable self expression. (Click here to see the video).

Of course, I loved it – not just because I’m a huge sports fan and like to see my hometown teams win (especially after many years of not winning, in the Niners’ case), but because it highlighted something very important…the power of tears!  I also loved it because you don’t usually see a big, strong football player like Vernon Davis break down and cry in the arms of his coach in front of 70,000 fans in the stadium and millions of people watching on TV.  But he did, and it was a powerful scene and an important reminder of what it means to be human.

One of the many things tears can do is remind us of our humanness, our vulnerability, our connection to one another, and to things much bigger than the specific circumstances we are facing.  We cry for different reasons and based on different emotions.  Sometimes we shed tears of pain, sorrow, loss, sadness, anger, frustration, or grief.  Other times, tears show up because of love, joy, inspiration, hope, or kindness.  Regardless of the underlying emotions and even when the reason for our tears is painful, crying often makes us feel better and is one of the most authentic expressions of emotion we experience as human beings.  Current research shows that 88.8% of people feel better after crying, with only 8.4% feeling worse.

However, many of us have a great deal of fear, resistance, and judgment about tears – both ours and those of other people.  While this tends to vary based on our age, culture, gender, and the environment in which we find ourselves, I’m amazed at how often crying is seen in such a negative way in our culture, even today.

I’m someone who loves to cry myself, although as a man I was trained early in my life, like most of the men I know, that “boys don’t cry.”  Based on this and a variety of other factors, I sometimes find it challenging to access and express my own tears.  Although when they do show up and I let them flow, they often flow passionately (I scared the guy sitting next to me on an airplane a few months ago when I was sobbing intensely while watching the wonderful movie The Help).

As I look back at some of the most important, pivotal, and transformational moments of my life, both ones I considered to be “good” and ones I considered to be “bad” at the time, tears were a part of just about all of those experiences.

How do you feel about shedding tears yourself?  Is it easy for you to cry?  Is it hard?  Are you comfortable crying in front of others?  Do you judge yourself or others for doing so?  I think it’s interesting and important for us to ask ourselves these questions and notice our relationship to tears.

While I’m not advocating that we go around crying all the time just for the sake of it.  Excessive crying can sometimes point to a more serious underlying emotional issue and/or can be done as a way to manipulate others.  I’m not talking about that either.  I’m talking about our ability to express our emotions in a real and vulnerable way, some of the time resulting in the shedding of our tears.  What if we embraced crying a bit more and let go of our negative connotations about doing so?  As Charles Dickens beautifully said, “We need never be ashamed of our tears.”

Even though we may resist, fear, and avoid crying – at work, with friends or family, with members of the opposite sex, with our children, or with anyone else, we worry it wouldn’t be “appropriate” to cry in front of, there are some real positive benefits to shedding tears.  Such as:

  • Crying is good for our physical and emotional health – Medical research now suggests that tears could actually be a way of flushing negative chemicals out of the body and doing us a world of good physically. In addition to removing toxic substances from our body, crying can also have the psychological benefit of lifting our mood and helping us to deal with painful situations.
  • Shedding tears reduces stress – Crying is thought to help reduce stress, which can have a damaging effect on our health and has been linked to a number of health problems including heart disease, high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes and obesity. According to a study by Dr. William H. Frey II, a biochemist at the St Paul-Ramsey Medical Center in Minnesota, crying can help to wash chemicals linked to stress out of our body, one of the reasons we feel much better after a good cry.
  • When we cry we open up, let down our guard, and connect with others in a more real and vulnerable way – Many times in my own personal life and with many of the clients I’ve worked with over the years (both individuals and groups), I’ve seen tears dramatically shift a person’s perspective, change the dynamic of an argument, and bring people together in a genuine way. Tears have a way of breaking down emotional walls and mental barriers we put up within ourselves and towards others. Crying tends to be some kind of human equalizer, because no matter the circumstance, situation, or stress we may face, our tears have a way of shifting and altering things in a beautiful, vulnerable, and humbling way.

There’s nothing wrong with our tears, even if we get a little embarrassed, uncomfortable, or even pained when they show up. As we allow them to flow through us, we not only release toxins from our body, stress from our system, and thoughts from our mind – we tap into one of the most basic and unifying experiences of being human. Crying is powerful and important – let’s have the courage to do it with pride and support each other in the healthy expression of our tears.

How often or easily are you moved to tears?  How do you feel about crying?  What can you do to empower your relationship with the tears of others and yourself? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.