(4 minutes reading time)
Your Feelings Won’t Kill You – But Ignoring Them Might Hurt
Let’s get this straight:
Facing your thoughts and feelings won’t kill you.
It won’t end the world.
But yes—it might be uncomfortable. It might shake your ego.
And that’s actually a good thing.
As Jillian Michaels says:
“A bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul.”
And Eckhart Tolle reminds us:
“Ego and awareness cannot coexist.”
So when you begin to explore what’s really going on inside you—even just a little—you’ll start to feel lighter, calmer, and more connected to who you truly are.
Why We Feel So Much
Psychologist Melanie Klein studied babies (including her own) and discovered that we come into the world with big emotions.
From the moment of birth, we experience contrast:
- Safety to chaos
- Warmth to cold
- Comfort to fear
Anxiety and fear come from being pulled out of the quiet, dark safety of the womb into a world that’s noisy, bright, and overwhelming.
Anger and frustration come from total dependence—we need someone else to feed us, hold us, and keep us alive.
Love and safety come when we’re held close, fed, and soothed by a warm body and a caring presence. That’s when we feel “home.”
But What If That Safety Wasn’t Always There?
Life isn’t perfect. Many parents are stressed, tired, and stretched thin. This can affect how we attach to them:
- Anxious attachment: Mum might be there sometimes, but her own mental health struggles make her inconsistent.
- Avoidant attachment: She’s overwhelmed with other kids, work, or life—so you learn not to depend on anyone.
- Disorganised attachment: She’s loving one minute, then gone the next—so you feel confused, unsure, or unsafe.
None of this means you’re broken. It means your emotional wiring was shaped by what you experienced. And that wiring can be healed.
The Weight of Forbidden Feelings
In many families and communities, especially those influenced by strict religious or cultural beliefs, emotions like anger, jealousy, or sadness are labelled as sinful or wrong. You might have been taught that being angry means you’re not a “good” person, or that feeling jealous makes you selfish or ungrateful. Over time, these messages teach you to suppress your natural emotional responses—to deny a part of your human experience. The result? Shame, confusion, and a growing distance from your true self. But here’s the truth: you are allowed to feel everything. Your feelings are not a moral failing—they are signals that something inside you needs care, understanding, or healing.
When We Don’t Feel, We Numb
If you’ve turned to:
- Addiction
- Self-sabotage
- Hurting yourself or others
…it’s not because you’re “bad.”
It’s usually because you’ve been trying to avoid your feelings. And you’re not alone. Most people weren’t taught how to feel—just how to cope.
But here’s the truth:
Your emotions are not dangerous. They’re trying to help you heal.
They’re like messengers, not monsters.
The Ego’s Mask
When those feelings get pushed away, something else takes their place. To survive, you begin to create versions of yourself—an ego, a mask, a role—that’s more acceptable to the world around you. Maybe it’s the always-happy one, the achiever, the carer, the quiet one, the strong one. These personas form to protect the part of you that felt shame just for being real. But over time, they become exhausting to maintain. Deep down, you know you’re more than these roles. Healing means reclaiming the parts of you that got disowned—not by rejecting the mask, but by gently taking it off and meeting the real you underneath with love and curiosity.
The work you have to do to be more authentic
Your emotions are natural, important, and—thankfully—temporary.
Even the worst feeling won’t last forever.
You don’t need to keep struggling through life in survival mode.
A few sessions of counselling can help you:
- Understand your emotional patterns
- Get to the root of your reactions
- Stop repeating painful cycles
- Feel more grounded, clear, and safe in your own skin
You Have a Choice
You can keep pushing everything down, repeating the same pain in different ways…
Or you can gently start turning toward yourself with compassion.
Not just for you, but for the people who love you—and the life you’re here to live.
What do you choose?
How counselling can help
We will form a therapeutic relationship to provide you with a safe space to talk. When you talk, you will be able to explore your uncomfortable feelings. As you allow them, they will subside and you will start to feel lighter. The old ways of believing you are bad, not good enough, an imposter in your own body or that no one will like you if you stop people-pleasing will all fall away. You’ve got this.
Are you ready to talk?
I offer a low-cost confidential service. I offer space to speak, find your voice, be really heard and validated. I am a trained professional counsellor who specialises in anxiety and trauma. Make an appointment to meet me and tell me what you want from counselling. See if you feel comfortable. The first session is over Zoom for both of our safety and then you can do sessions over Zoom from your own home or in person in mine, in my safe, comfortable therapy room.
Book your appointment today
Click here and book a free initial consultation with me today. Read what people are saying about working with me in counselling here. I hold a private, confidential space for you. I’m looking forward to meeting you and hearing you very soon. Best wishes, Karen.
Disclaimer: I am a UK qualified person centred counsellor specialising in anxiety and trauma within the context of counselling. I write from my experiences and from my client work in counselling. My work is dependent on the therapeutic relationship and the meeting of two minds. It is a humbling experience and that is all part of the healing process that I witness every day. It is the best job in the world. This is not an emergency service. If you need to speak to someone urgently outside of my sessions, please call the Samaritans on 116 123 (24/7 confidential helpline in the UK).