Stuffing Your Feelings

It’s not good for you. Too many people that I know personally don’t want to say anything negative, they don’t want to tell someone that maybe their feelings got hurt in some way, and so what they do is they stuff it. They stuff those feelings. I’ve never been one to do that. When I was a youngster living at home, my parents would get into disagreements and arguments about things and sometimes they were pretty big arguments. Like many arguments, they weren’t based on anything really serious.  One person started saying something, the other person said something, and then someone’s feelings got hurt and then they might start hollering and yelling; they might walk away. Well, my dad had a workshop that was out behind the house, and so dad would go out and he’d just spend a lot of time in his workshop for two or three days, which is interesting. He used to tell us stories about his father getting angry with his mom, and grandpa would go out to the barn. He was a farmer. He would go out to the barn, and he’d sleep in the barn for a few days. So my dad kind of modified that to just hanging around the workshop. The point is that they stuffed those feelings. They didn’t deal with them. They stuffed the hurt, the anger, the resentments.

So, I decided years ago that I would not live my life that way; that what I would do is deal with those feelings because I never thought it made any sense not to You get irritated and your feelings are hurt and you have a disagreement with someone. Now you don’t talk it out. What you do is you stuff that. You keep that inside and you tell yourself, okay, I’ve let that go, but in essence, most of the time you haven’t let it go. It still bothers you. And then the next time it comes up, something comes up, a disagreement, and your feelings are hurt or you have an irritation or another argument and you stuff those into your feelings ‘suitcase’ as well. You get the idea. You keep stuffing it, stuffing it, stuffing it, and it doesn’t go away. And the suitcase expands. The feelings don’t disappear because you’ve stuffed them. They’re still inside there. And then one day the suitcase holding all of those unresolved feelings explodes, and the damage to you and those you love may be irreparable.  Or, you continue to stuff those things your entire life and you live a life of quiet desperation, with all of that stress damaging not only you on the outside, but you on the inside as well.  because you haven’t been able to actively participate in your life, and live more happy, joyous, and free. So I would encourage you, don’t stuff it. Stuff the turkey if you want on Thanksgiving, but don’t stuff the feelings. Keep the feelings out there. And that doesn’t mean to go off on somebody. I’m not encouraging you to just start hollering and yelling and biting somebody’s head off. What I’m saying is to pause maybe, to pause if you’re irritated, to think about it. It may not be the right time to discuss it at that moment. It might not be the best opportunity to do that, but a time will come when you can sit and have a calm conversation. And of course, the important stuff is you don’t do any name calling, you don’t start hollering, you don’t swear, you don’t cuss, you don’t do those things that are counterproductive. What you do is have an adult conversation about how you felt and let the other person respond and when they’re responding, don’t think about what you’re going to say next. Tr to listen to what they’re saying. So I appreciate you being here. This is Thoughts 4 the Ages. There will be more of these for you to consider. 

If you’d like to comment, you can email me, at david@davidagwilt.com. That’s david@davidagwilt.com.  Thanks very much.