“Don’t feel:” a basic rule in many families. It is taught by saying “Only babies cry; Scaredy cat; You don’t feel that.” It is reinforced when parents ignore, ridicule or react abusively to a child’s feelings. Correct information about how to identify and what to do with various feelings is missing.

As children, some people learned to turn off all feelings, others learned that some feelings were all right to express and others were forbidden. Some children learned to feel but not to communicate about their feelings. As an adult you may still be operating from one of those positions that you learned when you were small.

Excerpted from I Don’t Need Therapy, but Where Do I Turn for Answers?

[tags]Emotional Problems, Personal Growth, Self Help[/tags]