How to Stop Feeling Ashamed of Your Feelings
| For years, I thought my emotions were a weakness. Then God showed me they were actually a gift.
“And how did that make you feel?”
Silence shouts on my side of the screen. My therapist’s question echoes in my mind while I sit frozen. My thoughts race… How did I feel about that?
I scroll through the basic emotions tab in my head searching for something to appease the moment.
Have you ever been here?
Downplaying your true emotions just to keep the peace. Brushing them off so it doesn’t “become a big deal.” Avoiding your own heart so you don’t have to face what’s really there.
That’s what happens when you spend your life catering to everyone else. Always worrying about how they feel, how they see you, what they prefer. Somewhere in the process, you forget that your emotions matter too. That they deserve to be seen, heard, and tended to.
And the truth is this: you matter. How you perceive things matters. Your emotions are worth paying attention to.
Now, please don’t take that out of proportion. In no way am I saying make feelings your idol and listen to them over logic and self control.
But I am saying stop piling on the shame, and give yourself space to feel with grace. Emotions contain a purpose to our well being. They serve as warning signs and thermometers to what’s happening internally no matter how much we mask it with a smile for our family, friends and co workers.
How to Heal Emotional Shame
For years, I had a love/hate relationship with my emotions. I hated that I was so sensitive, that tears came so easily, that I seemed to “feel too much.”
But then I discovered something life-changing: God made me this way.
My emotions aren’t a weakness. They are a warning system, a release system. Tears let us express our grief or even our joy. Anger signals that something isn’t right. Sadness reveals we aren’t really happy in that relationship or situation. Emotions are a gift.
Can you believe that?
A gift.
Yet so many of us were raised to believe the opposite. We’ve been told to “get over it,” “toughen up,” or “push past how you feel.” But that’s not exactly biblical, and it’s definitely not healthy. It’s a lie we’ve involuntarily carried.
Luckily when I started this journey of being whole from the inside out, my therapist saw right through my nonchalant exterior and challenged me to reflect on my emotions daily. At the end of each day, I had to write down what I felt… no matter how big or small. And in that process, I discovered something powerful:
I had been covering my emotions in shame.
I had grace and patience for everyone else’s feelings, yet showed so little compassion for my own.
Why Emotional Health Matter
This is why I’m passionate about telling others today to give themselves grace. Including you!
Why?
Because shame cannot live in the healthy version of you.
Yes, practice self-control so your emotions don’t run wild. Yes, create boundaries to protect yourself. But shame? There’s no room for it in the whole and healed version of who you are.
And here’s the thing: ignoring emotions doesn’t erase them. Case in point, if you talk about a past hurt today, you may still feel it in your body. That’s proof it never really left. You shoved it into the closet of undesirable realities, but the door never truly shut.
Because let’s be honest, when you bottle everything up it’s only a matter of time before things explode. In my experience it usually happens at the worst possible time, triggered by the smallest annoyance igniting the flame.
While having compassion for others is beautiful, we must also give ourselves permission to feel. Healing starts within. And as women of faith, emotional healing is a vital part of our faith journey, self-worth, and spiritual growth.
So stop feeling ashamed of your feelings. God gave you a tender heart for a reason.
And when you allow yourself to feel, you also allow yourself the space to heal.
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