The Feelings We Avoid May Be Our Greatest Teachers

I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to avoid uncomfortable feelings. Frustration, fear, disappointment, resentment, sadness—all those emotions many of us think of as bad feelings.

I suspect I’m not alone.

When one of these feelings arrives, it’s tempting to do almost anything except feel it. I can explain why someone upset me, replay what happened, keep myself busy or start working on a solution. My thinking mind is very good at all of that. Sometimes I’m so caught up in the story that I hardly notice what’s happening inside me.

One of the most valuable things Shaltazar has taught me is to see these uncomfortable feelings in an entirely different way. Rather than treating them as something wrong that needs to be fixed or pushed away, I’ve been learning to recognize them as invitations to understand myself more deeply. What if the very feelings I’ve spent so much energy avoiding have something important to tell me?

When the Story Takes Over

In my coaching conversations, I’ve noticed how naturally we talk about everything around our feelings without actually naming them. We tell stories about our partners, family, colleagues or the circumstances that have made life difficult. The details may matter, but they can also keep us at a comfortable distance from our feelings.

I remember a client who would begin telling me what her husband had done, then move on to her children, her mother or someone at work. I’d ask, “How did that make you feel?” She would start to answer and, almost immediately, return to the story.

I’d gently interrupt: “I don’t want to hear more of the story right now. I want to know how you’re feeling.”

Not because her story was unimportant. Because I sensed there was something underneath it worth hearing.

I’ve caught myself doing exactly the same thing. It’s easier to explain a feeling than to sit still long enough to experience it.

What If Feelings Were Friends?

Shaltazar offered me a beautiful way to begin developing this new relationship with my emotions: treat them as I would a trusted friend.

A true friend doesn’t always tell me what I want to hear. Sometimes they say something uncomfortable, something I’d rather dismiss. Yet because I trust them, I listen. I don’t have to agree immediately or assume they’ve interpreted everything correctly. I give their words room to land.

What if we offered our emotions that same courtesy?

Instead of saying, “I shouldn’t be angry,” perhaps I could say, “Anger, you’re here. I’m listening.” Instead of treating disappointment as evidence that I’ve failed, I could become curious about why something mattered so much to me.

The feeling itself is real. It tells me something about my inner experience. But the story I attach to it isn’t automatically true. My anger doesn’t prove someone else is wrong. My fear doesn’t predict what will happen. Listening to feelings also means being willing to question my first interpretation of them.

And listening isn’t the same as letting a feeling make every decision. It’s giving it a voice without handing it the steering wheel.

What My Disappointment Revealed

Recently I received medical test results that weren’t what I’d hoped for. My Crohn’s disease, which had been in remission, was showing signs of activity again.

The first feeling I noticed was disappointment.

Initially I thought I was simply disappointed about the results. Of course I was. But instead of rushing past that feeling, I stayed curious. Why did the disappointment seem to carry such a heavy personal weight?

An uncomfortable belief surfaced: I’m a Spiritual Life Coach. Shouldn’t I have been able to keep myself well?

There it was. I had quietly turned a medical result into a judgment about my worth and credibility. As I sat with that realization, I recognized an old expectation I’d carried since childhood: I need to perform well to be worthy of love.

I began seeing how that expectation was still showing up in my life. Even work I genuinely love—coaching, writing and sharing wisdom—could become something I pushed myself to produce, as though doing more would finally be enough.

To be clear, my Crohn’s returning doesn’t mean I caused it through my thoughts or feelings. Illness is more complex than that. What I could explore was my emotional response to the news, and the pressure I was adding to an already difficult experience.

The medical results hadn’t revealed whether I was a good coach. My disappointment had revealed an expectation I was placing on myself.

That’s a very different discovery.

Listening Beneath the Feeling

I’m learning that an uncomfortable emotion may be the beginning of a conversation, not the final answer.

Frustration might invite me to look at an expectation I have of someone else. Guilt might reveal a belief that saying no makes me unkind. Resentment might point toward a need I haven’t acknowledged. Sometimes a feeling simply asks to be felt, without offering a neat explanation.

This isn’t a formula, and we won’t always understand what we’re feeling right away. Interpreting emotions is more an art than a science. We may need to return to the same feeling many times, noticing something different each time.

And there are moments when emotions feel too intense to explore alone. Seeking support can be another way of listening to ourselves with kindness.

What matters is approaching our inner experience with less judgment and more willingness to learn.

One Small Invitation

The next time an uncomfortable feeling arises, see if you can resist the urge to explain it away, fix it or rush back into the story.

Pause, if only for a moment. Notice where you feel it. Give it a simple name if you can. Then imagine you’re sitting with a trusted friend and ask, gently, “What might you be trying to tell me?”

You don’t need an immediate answer. You don’t even need to feel better. Perhaps all you can do today is acknowledge that the feeling is there. That’s a meaningful beginning.

I’ve come to believe that self-discovery isn’t about finally fixing every difficult part of ourselves. It’s about becoming willing to meet more of ourselves with understanding and love.

Sometimes the feelings we’ve spent years avoiding become the very ones that help us discover more of who we are.