Why understanding isn’t the same as feeling

Topics mentioned: looking after your mental health, depression, talking therapy

About: Joshini shares her experience of learning to make space for difficult feelings, and why we don’t always need to figure them out straight away.

Growing up, I often found myself trying to understand why I felt the way I did. Sometimes I didn’t get the explanation or reassurance I needed from the people around me, so I became quite good at looking for my own answers. 

As I got older, social media made that even easier. Suddenly there were words for things I had experienced but couldn’t explain. You might have avoidant attachment if you do this. You might be hyper-independent if you do that. Maybe it’s your inner child, your trauma response or your nervous system. There always seemed to be another explanation for why I behaved or felt a certain way. 

And honestly, I think that can be a good thing. Having the language to understand yourself can make you feel less alone and less like something is wrong with you. 

For me, finding these explanations became a way of making sense of things that had felt confusing for a long time. If I could work out why I felt anxious, why I reacted a certain way or where a particular feeling came from, it felt easier to deal with. 

I could replace “What’s wrong with me?” with “Why might I be feeling this way?”.

Understanding myself gave me some distance from what I was feeling. If I could explain it, I could analyse it. If I could analyse it, I could work out what to do about it.

When I was struggling with my mental health, this became even more important. I was very depressed, and I often saw things in a very black-and-white way. Everything felt either completely fine or completely hopeless. At times, it felt like my whole life was something I was just wasting away. Trying to understand myself gave me something to focus on and helped me function better. But eventually, I started to notice something. 

I could spend so much time asking myself things like: What triggered this? Is this connected to something that happened when I was younger?, that I ended up staying in my head instead of actually accepting what I was feeling – and feeling it. I could understand why I was hurt without letting myself feel hurt. I could explain my anger without actually sitting with it.

It was almost like I was watching my emotions from the outside rather than letting myself experience them.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) helped me to notice this. Writing down my thoughts forced me to slow down and separate what I was thinking from what I was feeling. Instead of immediately trying to work out where an emotion had come from, I could stop and ask myself, “What am I feeling in this moment?”. If I was feeling anxious about something, I would sometimes even say it out loud: “I feel anxious right now, and that’s okay. What can I do to make myself feel better?”.

Meditation helped in a similar way. Spending less time on my phone and being more present made me realise how often I reached for something to distract myself when I felt uncomfortable. I didn't always need another explanation or something to occupy my mind. Sometimes I needed to sit with the feeling long enough for it to pass.

I still catch myself trying to find an explanation for how I feel and I don't think that's something I need to stop. Understanding myself has helped me through some very difficult periods, and I still find it useful.

The difference now is that I try to notice when I'm searching for an answer because I genuinely want to understand something, compared to when I'm searching because I don't want to sit with how uncomfortable it feels.

Maybe there is a reason. Maybe you’ll figure it out later. And maybe sometimes you don't need to figure it out at all.

You can understand yourself without having to have yourself completely figured out. You don’t have an obligation to make sense of every feeling the moment you have it.

You don’t need to understand exactly why something hurts before you’re allowed to acknowledge that it does.