The Therapy Edit - On comparing feelings

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

Someone will always have it harder, more challenging, sadder than you. But what happens when we compare our feelings and experiences?

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hi everyone. I hope you are okay. So this is my second episode of the Therapy Edit. And we're going to be talking on comparing your emotions. Now, I'm finding this my biggest challenge at the moment. I think, you know, one minute I'm at the kitchen table with my kids. There are tears and tantrums. I'm seeing the days and the weeks ahead wondering how the heck. Am I going to manage this?

It just feels so overwhelming. And then I feel really upset because life as I know it is just changed. And I miss my friends and I miss being able to just walk out the house more than once a day and not having to think about. when to go shopping and all of all of these things you know and it's just such an emotional time and I have shared a few tears and that is all fine you know that is all fine but then I get this emotional comparison and I then find a way to kind of shame myself for those feelings so I spoke to my friend yesterday on the phone on my one trip out and I was walking through the beautiful woods and

she was telling me all about her shift. She's a doctor. She's working in hospice. And it is absolutely brutal, just brutal. She was telling me the details. I wanted her to just let me know what it was like for her. I wanted to validate her feelings and I wanted to, you know, support her. And that was literally the any way that I could really do that at that time. And then I just, I kept using that, you know, for the rest of the day when I felt challenged or I felt sad or I felt frustrated, I just kept telling myself, like, but I'm not, I'm not her. I'm not working in hospital. I'm not standing behind a bed. I'm not standing behind a till. I'm not standing behind, you know, in all of these different frontline jobs. I'm not, I'm not a single man. I'm not

at home on my own, you know, and I was using these to tell myself to, to buck up, you know, back up, invalidating my feelings. And it's just such a challenge, isn't it? Because we can always do that. There will always be, no matter how challenging your situation is, there will always be someone who's having a harder time. There will always be someone who is struggling more than you are. And I think, you know, we do this in so many areas of our lives, don't we? We use comparison to invalidate our feelings. And what happens when we do that? And what happens when we do there is that we tell ourselves that we can't feel that we shouldn't feel those things we shouldn't feel those things and as soon as we tell ourselves we should we shouldn't we start feeling guilty

don't we and we start shaming ourselves for those emotions and every time we put those emotions away and we squash them and we devalue them we're essentially like putting them behind a dam you know imagine a dam and you're saying nope this emotion let's just chuck it over that damn wall that that that's that's not for me that's not right that's not okay And it's still there. You know, that emotion is still there. It's still real. It's still valid and it's still there. But when we let ourselves just feel these feelings and we let ourselves feel the fear or the frustration or the sadness, because there's a lot of grief right now, like grieving for life as we know it, that's a grief. And no matter whether your life has changed less or more than your neighbours or your friends, you know, that feeling is valid. And when we let ourselves feel those feelings, they're like, you know, feelings are like waves. They peak and then they ebb and they flow and they pass. And it's okay, you know, it's okay to feel all those different feelings.

It's just, it's actually really important for mental health that we just let them be and we trust that they will come and go. And sure, use other people's experiences, you know, as a way to encourage yourself to be grateful for your situation, like just since talking to my friend yesterday, I have felt so much more gratitude that I have safety and I have my family safe in my home and all of those things. And I think for her, just knowing that her situation and what she is going through causes me to be more grateful for what I have. But don't use gratitude to shame your emotions either because that's just doing the same thing. I think it's just letting them be. It's hard, it's sad.

It's harder for some. It's more traumatic for some. And that is undoubtable. And that is always going to be true in every walk of life. You know, there's a lady that lives locally to us. And she has got 10 children. And I remember the first time I met her, I was at a playgroup. And it had been a massive ordeal for me to get out of my house with two, you know, a toddler and a newborn. And I saw her with three children. I thought, oh my goodness, wow. She got out the house with three. And I said to her, oh, I found it so hard with two and you've got three. And she goes, oh, I've got, she's actually had another one since then. I've got six more at home. And I was like, oh my goodness. Now I feel like such an idiot for finding it hard with two. And the thing is, it's all relative. Her experience is

different to mine. She'd been a mum for a lot longer. She'd learned the juggle. Her capacity had increased. You know, the experienced worker, it wouldn't be fair to say to the new starter, why are you not working to my level? Why are you not working to my capacity? Because we all just have such different capacities and we all have such different levels. And I think, again, it's just sure use comparison to help you be grateful and for what you do have but just do not use it to devalue some very real and very valid emotions because otherwise we will all find a way to never validate any of our feelings we'll find a way to shame every single feeling that we have you know is there one element of society one one person in the world who has it hardest

so therefore their, only their frustration, only their sadness is valid and everyone else is therefore is invalid. So let those feelings come. You know, just trust that they will pass, but do not shame yourself because this is your experience. Everyone's experience is different. These are your feelings and they are valid and they won't be this intense forever. You know, just let them be, let them go, don't chuck them behind that damn. I spend a lot of times as a therapist picking, you know, picking those feelings out from back behind those downs where they've been put for years and years. And it just all, it just all adds up over time. So validate your feelings. They're okay. They'll pass. Sure, bringing gratitude.

Sure, bringing, you know, gratefulness and being in the moment and all of those things. But, yeah, just let them come, let them go. My friend recently had a baby and she messaged me and she was like, I'm just having such a hard time. But I can't. complain. I cannot complain because you've got three. You know, I could then say, well, I can't complain because I know someone with 10. But what it does when we do this, it just shuts us down, doesn't it? It just says, you know what? What I feel doesn't matter in light of what that person's going through. When actually it freezes us. It keeps us stuck. We need to validate these emotions. We need to have them heard. We need to allow people to come alongside us every now and

just to help us process these emotions so that they're not as intense so they're not you know so that they can move on and I just remember saying to my friend like yeah I had one child you know it's a massive adjustment isn't it that first baby is such a massive adjustment I've I've been through that a few times now it doesn't mean that I'm any better a mother than she is it just means that I'm a little bit more experienced you know she does not need to hold herself against my experience level and I do not need to hold myself against someone with 10 children's experience level because none of us will ever be able to feel anything will we so yeah let them be just let them be let them come let them go and they will and they will but they are valid maybe write them down maybe

you know spend some time just scribbling out those feelings to give value to them Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe and review. You can find more from me on Instagram, Anna Martha. You might like to check out my two books called Mind Over Mother and Know Your Worse. I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mother's mental and emotional well-being.

It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.