I once said not all feelings are valid. I was wrong. Here is what I learnt from therapy:

I grew up a slave to other people's unexamined emotions. Whether I was going to have a good day or not was determined by how my family members were feeling. Was I going to be hit that day? Was I going to screamed at? My family's feelings decided that, not my actions.

So I grew up to be a very "rational" person to combat the emotional swings in my family members. I would suppress my feelings so I would not be as hurtful as others. Feelings wouldn't control me.

However, what ended up happening was a suppression of emotions. They didn't go away. They were just bottled up inside. When I would be triggered, I had to escape to be alone, where in I would toy with suicide to try and escape those feelings.

The thing is emotions are important, but they shouldn't be "king". They shouldn't determine what we are foing to do or whether we treat people good or bad that day. Feelings are messengers. They tell us what needs are and are not being met.

I feel happy because I am loved. My needs for affection are met. That's what my happiness tells me. I feel angry because I don't feel respected at work. My need for respect is being undermined by my boss. Feelings are important because they tell us what we need.

Now where calidity comes in is in the narratives that our emotions are based on. Our emotions may stem from "false narratives" we tell ourselves. I am sad because "no one loves me". It is unlikely that this is the case, but we still believe false things sometimes.

So I work at correcting false narratives. My psych helps me with this, but friends do to. Don't stop with how you feel; look at the narrative behind what you feel. Sometimes we can change the way we tell our story so that it is more realistic and therefor not so bad.

Sometimes though, we can't change the narrative because what is really happening is really bad and beyond our control. The best thing there is to give yourself compassion and surround yourself with compassionate people who will sit through the difficulty with you.

Put on "Everybody Hurts" by REM. Be with the emotion and say, "it is right and normal to feel bad sometimes and one day I might feel better, but right now I want to value what I have lost and have a good cry."

Feelings may be based on false narratives, but feelings always flag up something important. They need to be looked and understood. They are not an excuse to treat people badly. We always have the choice of how we react to our emotions. Examine them first; and then act after.