Why Telling Someone Not to Feel Sad or Crabby is a Bad Idea

It’s okay to feel what we feel

I’ve often wondered if many of my traits and behaviors are factory-installed or aftermarket additions. How much of who I am was onboard when I was born and how much was added by life events and the people around me?

When I look at my own kids, I know that they were different from the start. The parenting style I used with my first son was completely ineffective with my second. Yet I also know I passed along some of my own baggage to them through the things I said and did. So I suppose like most things in life it isn’t one or the other, but a combo of both.

What I know for sure about myself is that somehow I’ve spent most of my life disconnected from my feelings. Or to be more precise — I stuffed down the ones that were difficult to feel and I didn’t want others to see in me — ones like sadness, anger, and crabbiness. I covered them up with a blanket of sun-shiny slogans and platitudes.

I didn’t think I’d be accepted or loved if I admitted to feeling anything other than happy and agreeable.

But this method of dealing with feelings didn’t work because the sadness, anger, and crabbiness never went away. They still lurked just below the surface. Keeping all those hard feelings inside me was a lot like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. I could only do it for so long before something would trigger me and those feelings would pop up sideways, usually in the form of a passive-aggressive or snarky comment.

Then I’d go back to smiling again.

Not a healthy or effective way of dealing with how I felt. And to top it off, hiding how I felt was like wearing a mask. I acted as if all was okay inside me even when it wasn’t.

I wasn’t living authentically.

And while I think it’s good to look back and analyze what shaped me — especially when raising kids of my own and wanting to understand what aftermarket parts I may be installing — spending too much time trying to figure out how it happened keeps me from moving forward into how I’d like to handle my behavior from here on out.

One thing I’ve learned from reading books like Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown and through conversations with a close family member is the importance of validating feelings. Oprah agrees with this because in all the interviews she’s conducted a common relationship theme kept repeating —we all need to feel seen, heard, and understood. We need to feel validated.

The same applies to the relationship we have with our feelings. They need to be seen, heard and understood. They need to be validated.

We achieve this by recognizing and naming our feelings and then sitting with them. This can be difficult. It’s no fun to feel sad or crabby. And while feeling our feelings isn’t always easy it’s much worse to hide or shame them away as if they’re wrong.

Feelings aren’t wrong. They’re just feelings. Some feel better than others. And how we manage our feelings makes a difference to ourselves and those around us.

When we’re disconnected from our feelings makes it difficult to connect to others. How can we possibly understand what someone else is feeling when we don’t know or aren’t willing to admit how we’re feeling ourselves? How can we possibly connect with anyone when we’re hiding behind a mask?

Taking the mask off may make us feel vulnerable. There’s no doubt about that. But when we allow ourselves to remove it, relief kicks in.

We can finally be ourselves.

I had the opportunity to practice this concept of validating feelings with a friend last week — something I’ve been practicing with myself as well — and the results surprised us both.

We’d made plans earlier in the week to get together on Saturday night. My friend had a rough week and thought about backing out of our planned get-together. “I’m no fun right now. I’m feeling sad and crabby,” she warned.

As I’ve mentioned above, in the not-so-distant past, I’d have put on my Susie Sunshine hat and pointed out to my friend why she shouldn’t be sad or crabby. I’d have listed all the things she has to be grateful for. I’d have told her that an attitude of gratitude was the way out of her funk.

And while I agree that gratitude helps, spouting those words at that moment would achieve the opposite of what my friend needed right then. I’d be invalidating how she felt. I’d be making it seem wrong to feel sad and crabby. I’d be helping her shove that beach ball down. I’d be telling her to put on a smiley face mask.

So this time when my friend gave me that warning of sadness and crabbiness lurking around I declared, “It's okay. You’re allowed to be sad and crabby.”

When I said this a surprising thing happened.

She laughed.

Letting her know it was okay to feel sad and crabby made her feel better. It gave those feelings some breathing room. It didn’t take those feelings away completely. Instead, it loosened the grip they had on her.

And with those simple words, a deeper connection between us formed. She felt accepted just as she was that day.

kasey sparks, © 2023

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