Dive Into Your Feelings; Don't Resist Them

"Our reaction to having [meaningful] work or not having [meaningful] work is the most challenging part, and our resistance to feeling what we feel about it causes the greatest pain."
- Sark ([ ] added)

Feelings. Those pesky, reactive, troublesome things. When we seek work we love or new work that is appropriate, our feelings can be our greatest allies or our greatest enemies.

Why?

Because when we are in that in-between space of knowing we need to change but the change has not occurred, all kinds of uncomfortable feelings come to the surface. We might feel terrified, inadequate, paralyzed, hopeless, uncertain or defeated.

It may seem impossible to cross the space between knowing what we want and not yet having it. And in the meantime our feelings may be giving us messages of shame, despair, terror, worry and anxiety.

What do we do with all that intense feeling?

Most of us, unfortunately, run from the feelings or dull them through activity, food, alcohol, television or other escapist activities.

There's nothing wrong with doing any of these things in and of themselves, but when those things are used to run away from uncomfortable feelings, they are a poor substitute for engaging those feelings to see what they have to tell us.

Our feelings are always trying to get out attention. But if we ignore them, we feel even greater pain than if we allowed them to be present.

Let's take a look, for a moment, at what value we could get from allowing a feeling instead of repressing it.

We'll take the example of procrastination. Let's say you've known for some time that you need to move in a different direction in your career. You want work with purpose and meaning and you even have an idea about what you'd like to do but you don't yet know how you'll get there.

You've done some reading, but you keep putting off taking any action at all. You also keep substituting irrelevant actions for the relevant ones you know will lead you closer to that dream career.

What's really going on? If you sat with your procrastination for awhile and just let it be present, you may find that what the procrastination is concealing is worry. Now, you can begin to think about what form your worries are taking.

Name them. Then, you can decide if your worry is realistic or not. If it is, ask yourself what alternatives could you develop that would eliminate or decrease those worries.

For example, I had a friend who flew single and twin-engine aircraft across the ocean, delivering them to clients both ways. He was an experienced pilot, but he was very worried about what would happen if a big emergency occurred.

He began to put off taking those assignments because of his fear.

Finally, he wrote down all the things he knew could possibly go wrong, including catastrophic failure of the electrical system. He then planned for every eventuality, making adjustments to his route, emergency equipment and a number of other things. Once he was finally as prepared as he could be, he expanded his transatlantic ferry service.

On one occasion, he did experience a complete electrical malfunction but because he had planned, he was able to overcome the problem and land safely in Greenland where the problem could be permanently fixed.

He said he realized some of his fears were realistic and some were not so big, but by facing them and planning for them, he was able to diminish his fear and move forward.

You could do the same thing. Procrastination, like many other emotions, masks other, deeper feelings. By allowing yourself to experience the initial feeling instead of running away from it, you may understand what the underlying emotion is.

Then, you can deal with that in whatever ways seem appropriate to you.

That's the way to get unstuck, overcome a feeling of being a victim, uncover new choices and move more strongly in the direction of your dreams.

So welcome those uncomfortable feelings as friends. They really do have a lot to teach you.