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Life

Your Feelings Matter

September 29, 2021 22 Comments

Do you struggle with honoring and embracing your emotions? 

I know I do, as do many of us.

I also find it challenging to acknowledge that my feelings matter just as much as anyone else’s. While I don’t tend to hold back from sharing my feelings, opinions, and desires, I have learned from other people that I can talk too much in situations.

And what’s underneath all of this?

The deep fear that my feelings and desires aren’t as important as other people’s.

It has been humbling to come to this realization about myself. It has also made me understand how important it is to live my life knowing that what I feel is just as important as anyone else.

I used to think that honoring our feelings was selfish, self-absorbed, and even arrogant…it’s not.

All feelings matter. It is about being true to ourselves, honest with how we feel and what we want, and willing to engage in authentic conversations with other people, especially when we don’t feel or want the same things they do.

Why Do Some Of Us Doubt That Our Feelings Matter?

It’s hard for some of us to acknowledge that our feelings do, in fact, matter for several reasons.

We worry about what other people think about us. We fear that others will not like, approve, or understand us.

Some of us don’t value ourselves in an authentic enough way to understand that our feelings matter, too. Many of us believe that we don’t deserve certain things, making us uncomfortable feeling and expressing certain emotions.

In addition to this, we’re often taught to put other people’s needs and feelings above our own. We’re not taught healthy ways to honor our feelings, making us believe that our feelings don’t matter.

But they do.

Always Honor Yourself and How You Truly Feel

When we don’t honor ourselves, our feelings, and our beliefs, we:

  • Discount ourselves in a painful and damaging way
  • Create separation between other people and us
  • Don’t value ourselves
  • Struggle expressing ourselves
  • Believe that our feelings don’t matter

Five Ways to Embrace Your Feelings

Here are five tips on how to embrace, enhance, and honor your feelings.

1. Quit the Judging

Stop being so hard on yourself.  Self-judgment suppresses your true feelings, which has so many negative consequences on you and those around you.  Just be you and celebrate who you are.

2. Allow Yourself to Feel

All human emotions have value. Even the ones we consider “bad” can benefit us if we allow ourselves to feel them authentically. Allowing ourselves to feel these emotions can help us move through things in our lives that serve us and our relationships.

3. Be Real

Be true about what you want and get in touch with your true feelings. Be honest with yourself, be kind to yourself, and remember that you are enough.

4. Let Go

Many of us like to attach ourselves to our story.  Getting stuck in your story takes you out of the emotional experience, and puts you in the past, not the present. By simply feeling our emotions and moving through them, we can overcome almost anything.

5. Get Support

Most of us don’t get the emotional training that we need to feel and express our emotions in a healthy and productive way. When we have emotional support, we can move through the ups and downs of life much more effectively, and we remember that we don’t have to do it alone.  It is not only okay, but necessary, for us to ask for and receive help.

 

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!

  • Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously
  • Watch More Sunsets
  • Create Miracles Now

 

This article was published on June 28, 2012, and updated for 2021.

Filed Under: Blog, Emotions Tagged With: anger, feel, feelings, gratitude, honor, Life, love, Mike Robbins

Embrace the Gift of Life

July 6, 2016 28 Comments

Lori[1]

On January 7th, 2016, my big sister, Lori Dempsey Robbins, passed away after an almost four year journey with ovarian cancer.  Lori was 45 and the single mom of our 11 year old niece.  She was my first friend and one of my greatest teachers.

Being with her through her illness and her death was one of the most challenging experiences of my life.  There was so much sadness, pain, suffering, and fear involved.  The whole thing was very hard to face – for her, for me, and for all of us around her.  Trying to understand it all, make peace with what was happening, prepare for what was coming, and support her in a meaningful way was difficult, and, at times, seemed almost impossible.  It was an intense reminder of the ultimate vulnerability of physical life and the inherent powerlessness of being human.

At the same time, there were many moments of beauty, joy, gratitude, healing, and love – throughout her illness (even when it got really bad towards the end), as she died, and after she passed.  Lori and I experienced a transformation in our relationship over the past few years – we healed some old wounds and reconnected in a beautiful way, which was really meaningful to both of us.

She taught me and others a great deal as she faced cancer and death.  And, the love, support, community connection, and appreciation that showed up around her through her illness, as she was dying, and after her passing were truly remarkable.  She was loved and that love was expressed to her in many ways, and to all of us close to her, as she went through this painful process.

As my friend Glennon Doyle Melton says, life can be “brutiful,” (both brutal and beautiful at the same time).  Lori’s cancer, her death, and my own journey of grief these past six months have been the epitome of “brutiful.”  It is still surreal to me that she is gone.  I sometimes feel tempted to ask my wife Michelle, as I did often in those first few days and weeks after she passed, “Did that really happen?”

Although I do feel Lori’s presence, have had a number of vivid dreams about her, and know it is possible for us to still connect and communicate in various ways, there have been so many times over the past six months when I’ve wanted to pick up the phone to call or to send her a text or email, only to remember I can no longer do that.

Lori’s death, along with the deaths of our dad back in 2001 and our mom in 2011, leaves me as the sole living member of my nuclear family – yet another aspect of this experience that is truly disorienting.  I find myself feeling sad, scared, and lonely at times, as well as liberated, curious, and hopeful at other times.  All in all, it feels weird – like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

Through all of the twists and turns and the ups and downs of the past six months since Lori died and the past four plus years since she was diagnosed, I’ve learned a great deal (and am continuing to learn as I go).  As my big sister, Lori was one of the most significant teachers in my life.  Her teaching has continued, even through her death.

Here are some of the key things I’ve learned through this experience so far, which even with all of the pain and sadness, I’m grateful to have learned and to share:

1) Say I love you – One of my sister’s friends said to me, “Lori was the first friend I ever said ‘I love you’ to – because she said it to me.  It used to drive me crazy and make me feel uncomfortable – we were in high school and friends just didn’t say that to each other.  But, I finally caught on and it is one of the things I loved most about her.”

Lori always said “I love you,” which is something we learned from both of our parents, especially our dad.  And, in the days and weeks after her passing, I was struck by the number of people who not only showed up with love and support for me and our family, but who actually said “I love you” to me – friends, family members, and even some business associates, colleagues, and clients.  In some cases these were people who had never said this to me before, but in the face of my grief, loss, and sorrow, they did.  It feels good to know we are loved and it is important that we let people know as often as we can, even if it feels scary, awkward, or uncomfortable to express it.

2)  Be Proud of Who You Are and Where You’re From – My sister took pride in so many of the important roles and associations in her life.  She was proud to be a woman, daughter, sister, and mother.  She was proud to be from Oakland, CA and a graduate of Skyline High, Wesleyan University, and UC Berkeley.  She was proud to have been born in 1970 and raised in the 70s and 80s.  She was proud of her Irish Catholic and Ukrainian Jewish heritage.  She was a proud sports fan of all of our teams here in the Bay Area, especially the Oakland A’s.  She loved being connected to and associated with lots of different people and groups.

I used to make fun of her when we were younger for this – I didn’t totally understand or appreciate it.  However, as I reflect back upon it, I realize that her commitment to people, relationships, and community manifested itself through her genuine pride and in her desire to enthusiastically claim connection to so many diverse groups, which was beautiful.

3) Don’t Waste Time Judging and Criticizing Yourself – As much pride as Lori took in where she was from and various groups she was directly or indirectly connected to, she didn’t always take pride in herself personally.  Like most of us, she struggled to feel good about herself and to believe in her inherent value.  As I was looking through lots of old photos from different phases of her life, I saw pictures of this beautiful, passionate, engaged girl, teen, young woman, and woman.  In addition to the joy and sadness I felt looking at these photos, it also struck me that Lori, like me and so many of us, wasted a lot of her precious time and energy over her almost 46 years on the planet criticizing and judging herself.  Whether it was her body and appearance, her relationship status, or her results in school, activities, or her career, she often felt like she wasn’t quite measuring up or wasn’t where she wanted to be.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Although I do realize it’s normal for us to criticize ourselves at times or to think we’re not good enough, the truth is that at some point whether we’re 10, 25, 45, 70, 105, or somewhere in between, we’re each going to die (although we tend to live somewhat in denial of this important fact).  When we’re gone, someone will be looking back at photos and memories of us – do we want them thinking or saying, “Wow, I wonder why they thought they weren’t good enough?”  Or, would we rather them think or say, “Wow, they really lived their lives to the fullest…how cool that they were able to appreciate themselves and their lives the way they did.”  We have a choice about this – we don’t have to criticize and judge ourselves so harshly.  It really doesn’t serve us in any way to do this.

4) People Are More Important Than Things – As I stood up to speak at Lori’s memorial service, I was struck by so many different thoughts, feelings, memories, and insights.  There were people there from throughout her entire life – elementary school, junior high, high school, college, grad school, various jobs, companies, and communities, and more.  Even with all of the twists and turns of my sister’s life, she always placed a priority on relationships.  She taught me so many things about being a good friend, about how to communicate, about connecting people with each other, and about caring about people.  Lori was a connector and she was loyal – she always remembered people and cared deeply about them.

As we all gathered in that church in Oakland in late January to celebrate her life, and people who could not join us in person sat in front of their computers to watch the livestream of the service, the things we talked about, remembered, and shared about my sister had mostly to do with the kind of person she was and the relationship we had with her.  It wasn’t about accomplishments, awards, or things…it was about her, who she was (not what she did).  All too often we get caught up in the “things” of life.  And while there are some things in life that are truly important, in the end we are always reminded in a profound way that people are much more important than things.

5)  Embrace the Mystical and Spiritual Nature of Life – One of the most interesting and challenging aspects of physical death is the mystery of it all.  Why do some people die young while others live a long time?  What really happens when we die?  Where do we go?  Do we come back?  These and other questions like this have been pondered for generations and are at the heart of many of the world’s religious and spiritual teachings.  While there are many thoughts, ideas, descriptions, and, of course, disagreements to the answers to these important questions, there aren’t definitive explanations or empirical proof.

Making peace with these questions, to whatever degree we’re able to make peace with them, takes faith and a willingness to embrace the unknown.  And while our spiritual or religious beliefs play a major role in our perspective about this, one of the things I’ve experienced first-hand with the deaths of my dad, my mom, and now my sister (as well as a few other significant people in my life in recent years), is the inherent mystical and spiritual nature of death (and of life).  When we are close to someone as they die and/or we lose someone close to us, these questions about life and death are no longer theoretical, they are real and personal.  And, when we go through this experience, we come face to face with the mystery of it all.  Confronted with a lack of concrete proof or understanding, we have to tap into the mystical and spiritual realms, even if we don’t often do that or don’t know exactly what we believe in that regard.

Similar to the phenomenon of people saying “I love you” to me in the days and weeks after Lori passed, I was also struck by the number of people talking to me in mystical or spiritual terms – letting me know they were praying for me, saying that Lori was safe in the hands of God, excited that Lori was reunited with my parents and others in heaven, talking to me about dreams of her and conversations on the other side, seeing rainbows, birds, butterflies, and other signs and knowing that was Lori sending a message, and more.  It seems that in the face of death, we feel a little safer and more comfortable thinking about, looking for, talking about, and sharing our insights, beliefs, questions, and ideas about the mystical and spiritual nature of life.  I love and appreciate this…and, I wonder why it often takes death for us to look for, talk about, or think about things in this way.  Life is mystical and spiritual all the time, not just when someone dies…but it’s easy for us to forget this and/or feel uncomfortable thinking or talking about it in this way, for fear of being judged or separated from others based on our beliefs or questions.

I’m still deeply engaged in my journey of growth, discovery, and healing.  Lori’s death has had a profound impact on me.  I don’t totally understand it and probably never will.  I feel sad, confused, and disoriented as I continue to make my way through this process.  And, I feel grateful, joyful, and honored to have known my sister, learned from her, and for all of the gifts, blessings, and growth embedded in this experience, even as painful as it has been.  I also feel wonderfully and beautifully supported by some extraordinary people in my life as I navigate this process.

Life is a mystery in so many ways.  None of us knows how long we’ll be here or what’s going to happen next.  We each have a choice about how we choose to live in this moment.  Instead of waiting for it all to work out, make sense, feel good, look right, or be the “perfect” way we think it should be – what if we made a commitment to ourselves right here, right now to fully embrace the gift of life, exactly as it is?  It’s a simple concept…but a radical act!

How can you embrace the gift of your life right now? What support do you need to let go of what holds you back from doing this fully? Feel free to share your thoughts, insights, or any questions you have below in the comments.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: embrace life, grief, Life, live life

Are You In The Game?

October 9, 2014 5 Comments

I’ve been fascinated by the Major League Baseball playoffs, which started a little over a week ago.  As a former baseball player and lifelong fan, I usually watch the post season games…especially when one of our local teams here in the Bay Area is involved.  This year, both local teams (the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants) made it to the playoffs.  Unfortunately, The A’s got knocked out right away.  The Giants, on the other hand, are still alive and playing quite well…they seem to have some real October magic the past few years.

Although my personal interest and allegiance to the teams I like are what drew me to pay attention to the playoffs this year, I’m seeing, yet again, so many great life lessons involved in these games.  What’s been remarkable about the baseball post season so far this year is how many close games, twists and turns, and unexpected outcomes there have been.  None of the four teams left in the playoffs were favored.  In other words, each post season series has involved an upset, including seeing the Kansas City Royals, the organization which I played for back in 90s, advance for the first time in 29 years.

While these close games, upsets, and unexpected outcomes have been exciting for the fans of the teams still alive (and baseball fans in general), they have also involved a number of very successful teams and players not performing up to the level which was expected of them.  As a former player myself, I always think about the individuals and teams who lose and fail, and my heart goes out to them, because I know how disappointing, embarrassing, and downright painful that can be.  However, that’s all part of the game – someone wins and someone loses.  And, in all sports which have an ultimate “champion,” everyone involved, except for the members of the championship team, ends up losing.

Of course this is just the nature of baseball, and life in many cases.  And, as important as we take pro sports in our culture, at the end of the day, most of us realize it’s not a matter of life and death (although when our team is involved, it’s easy to forget that).  However, this fear of failing and losing, and specifically doing so publicly, is something that impacts most of us at some level personally.  We go to extraordinary lengths in our lives to make sure we don’t fail or lose, and to definitely make sure we don’t do so publicly.

Unfortunately, in baseball, like in life, if we aren’t willing to fail and lose, and even to do so publicly, we’ve probably signed up for the wrong game.  There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide – playing the game of baseball, just like living life, is ultimately a dangerous and vulnerable endeavor.  It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past or how talented you are, on any given day you can lose and cost your team the game, and possibly the entire season.

Clayton Kershaw who pitches for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and is considered my most experts to be the best pitcher in baseball, not only signed a 7-year, $215 million contract before the start of the season, had one of the best seasons by a pitcher in recent history this year.  He’s going to win the Cy Young award for the best pitcher in the league, and may also win the MVP (Most Valuable Player) award (which is rarely given to pitchers).  He lost both of the games he started in the Dodgers’ series against the St. Louis Cardinals and didn’t pitch anywhere nearly as well as he did all season long.  He failed.  He lost.  He did so in a big, public way.  His team got eliminated, even though they were expected to advance.

However, with all of this thought about failing and losing, and doing so publicly…as the saying goes, “We can’t win if we don’t play.”  And, even worse than losing or failing, is that we often don’t even show up for the game.  Or, if we do, we sit in the stands and comment on the game, instead of actually getting in there and playing.  Life happens in the game, no on the sidelines.  It can be scary in the game.  Sometimes you get hurt.  Sometimes you don’t get what you want.  Sometimes you fail.  And sometimes you even lose, and do so in a public, painful, and humiliating way.  But, so what?  We’ve all played and lost…and survived.  What are we so afraid of?

As a mentor of mine said years ago, “You’re living your life as though you’re trying to survive it.  You have to remember, no one ever has.”

Let’s stop trying to simply survive life, let’s get in the game and play.  And, if we have the courage to play, we may as well leave it all on the field and play with passion, heart, and authenticity.  Because when we do that, whether we “win” or “lose,” we can take pride in the fact that we showed up, put ourselves out there, and had the courage to go for it.

Where in your life are you in the game?  Where in your life can you put yourself in the game (even if you’re scared)?  Leave a comment here on my blog about this.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: baseball, game, Life, Mike Robbins, playoffs

Remember How Precious Life Is

June 19, 2014 1 Comment

I was deeply saddened to learn about the recent death of Hall of Fame baseball player Tony Gwynn.  Tony was a star for the San Diego Padres in the 1980s and 1990s.  In addition to being an incredibly talented and accomplished athlete, he had an infectious smile and personality.  I didn’t know Tony personally, but he was always someone I respected and admired – both for his skill and for the type of human being he seemed to be.

Given who he was and how he went about things, he seemed almost larger than life in many ways.  Hearing about his death shocked me.  It also had me pause and reflect on the precious nature of life, as I often do when I’m touched by someone’s passing.  In this week’s video blog, I talk about the preciousness of life and how we can live with more conscious awareness of it.

Check out the video below and feel free to leave a comment here on my blog about it.  You can share thoughts, questions, ideas, insights, or anything else that this video inspires.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: baseball, death, Life, loss, Mike Robbins, precious, reflection, sad, Tony Gwynn

Create Miracles Now

April 9, 2014 4 Comments

My friend Gabrielle Bernstein’s new book, Miracles Now, has had me stop and think more deeply about my own relationship to “miracles” and also how to create more of them in my life on a daily basis. As Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” This is so true!

In this week’s video blog, I explore this idea of miracles and share a few things you can focus on to create more miracles in your life.

Feel free to share your thoughts, insights, or questions about this with me and others on my blog.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Appreciation, Life, living, Mike Robbins, miracles, miraculous, openness

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