Taking Responsibility for Our Emotions
What does it actually mean to take responsibility for our feelings?
Taking responsibility doesn’t mean blaming ourselves for how we feel, or doing everything alone. What I’m talking about is much simpler, and in many ways, harder:
Taking responsibility for our emotions means being willing to sit with them. To stay with ourselves. To become curious instead of reactive.
It means slowing down long enough to notice what’s happening inside of us. It means observing our urges—like the urge to get up and get busy, the urge to overthink, the urge to blame someone else, or the urge to isolate—and choosing, at least for a moment, not to act on them.
The more we can sit without reacting, the more tolerance we build towards discomfort. And the more tolerance we build, the more agency we have in our lives.
Why We React Instead of Stay
I’m not saying we should never take action or stay in harmful situations just to “feel our feelings.”
What I am saying is that before we react, it’s important to turn inward and make space for what’s coming up. Because when we react impulsively in order to release the pressure of the emotional build up, we miss the message that the feeling is trying to convey.
Usually, our emotions are often messengers from the past. and they’re trying to tell us something about our history, our wounds, and our beliefs about ourselves and the world.
But if we’re constantly trying to fix them, escape them, or avoid them, we miss the opportunity to understand them, and learn from them.
The Middle Way: Neither Ignoring Nor Getting Consumed
I think a lot of people feel confused about what role emotions should play in their lives. We tend to get caught in the extremes:
Either we ignore our emotions completely and value logic and rationality above all else…
Or we get completely consumed by them, believing that what we feel is the truth.
But there’s a middle path.
We can learn to value our emotions without mistaking them for truth.
We can sit with them, listen to them, learn from them—and still recognize that they may not be telling us the whole story.
Our emotional responses aren’t always proportionate to what’s happening. They don’t always point to objective truth, in fact, they rarely do. But they do tell us something important about what we believe. They reveal how we’re interpreting the world. And that’s incredibly valuable information.
The Practice of Staying
So taking responsibility for our emotions really comes down to this:
Can we sit with our feelings long enough to understand them, rather than just trying to get rid of them?
Can we become aware of:
The urges that arise in our bodies?
The thoughts that cross our minds?
The beliefs underneath those thoughts?
This is about expanding our awareness and learning to hold the whole chain of cause and effect in our consciousness.
As we sit and breathe and notice, it’s helpful to have some questions to tether us.
Why is this feeling so uncomfortable for me?
What specifically makes me want to run from it?
What am I afraid will happen if I stay with it?
What do I believe this feeling says about me?
Questions help guide and ground our practice. And when we have a calm and encouraging voice running in the background asking these questions, we feel the comfort of our own presence. This is one aspect of developing a relationship with ourselves—learning to talk to ourselves in a kind and encouraging way.
This Practice Is Hard—And That’s Okay
Most of us struggle to sit with ourselves in silence for even five minutes. Our minds go in a hundred different directions, and our emotions tend to flood us. So I know that what I’m suggesting is hard. That’s why it’s important that we know that this isn’t a practice of perfection; it’s a practice of commitment.
It’s about showing up again and again, imperfectly.
Developing a relationship with our emotions is like developing a relationship with a person. It takes time to develop trust, safety, and comfort. Just like in any relationship, you’ll sometimes feel triggered, annoyed, even angry. That’s part of the work. But over time, the relationship will feel familiar and you’ll experience greater trust and stability.
The Cost of Avoiding Responsibility
When we don’t take responsibility for our emotions, we:
We become obsessed with fixing ourselves.
Or we project onto others and become obsessed with fixing or changing them.
We fixate on the future by making plans, setting goals, dreaming about what could be because it feels safer than being with the discomfort of the present moment.
There are so many ways that we try to escape the deep discomfort of our feelings. It amazing how creative we get. We will literally develop hundreds of strategies just to avoid the sensation we feel in our body, and the thoughts we have about those sensations. That’s truly incredible. We’re very intelligent when it comes to protecting ourselves. That’s why it takes time to unlearn our beliefs, specifically the beliefs that our emotions are dangerous, bad, or wrong. The more we practice staying with them, the more we realize it’s our beliefs that need to change, not the emotions themselves.
Reflection Questions
Before you go, I want to leave you with a few questions to reflect on:
What feelings do you most often avoid?
Where are you blaming others for something that’s happening inside of you?
Where can you take more responsibility for your emotional experience?
If you’re looking for an anxiety coach to help you reconnect with yourself and build a more balanced relationship with your emotions, I’d love to work with you. You’re welcome to book a free consultation or 1:1 session.
Wishing you well,
Sophia