I used to think being in my feelings was a weakness. Especially living with CPTSD and trauma. That if I let myself feel anything, sadness, anger, even happiness, it meant I was giving my trauma a seat at the table. Like feeling was the same as surrendering. So I armored up. Numbed out. Laughed things off. I told myself I was strong because nothing got to me.

But nothing going in also meant nothing could get out. I was stuck behind a wall that I built to protect myself from hurting, but that wall kept the good feelings out too. I thought I was protecting myself, but the reality was, in doing that, it meant I was just surviving, not actually living.

All I was doing, was robbing myself of the messy, beautiful, complicated parts of being human. The parts that make life real and worth living.

Feeling Is Not Surrender, It’s Strength

Turns out, feeling isn’t weakness. It’s actually the exact opposite. It takes courage to sit with pain instead of running from it. To admit something hurt. To let joy in without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Feeling isn’t letting trauma win, it’s how I finally started to heal from it.

Allowing yourself to feel is also a way to reflect. On the good and the bad. But having that ability, being able to notice what’s coming up without needing to shut it down or make it pretty, is its own kind of power. It means you’re no longer just reacting. You’re witnessing. Learning. Choosing.

Where the Feelings Really Come From

When I stopped treating feelings like landmines, I started understanding where they came from. Sometimes the sadness wasn’t about now, it was about a version of me that never got to feel safe. Sometimes the anger was a boundary I didn’t know I needed. And the feeling of happiness? That was the hardest. Because it felt so unfamiliar, I almost didn’t trust it.

Messy, Human, and Healing

But feeling it all, messy, inconvenient, overwhelming, it made me more human. And less haunted.

It allowed my empathy to be front and center too. Not just for other people, but for myself, which was new territory. I used to reserve compassion for everyone else while holding myself to some brutal, unspoken standard of toughness. But once I started letting myself feel, I could finally see the scared, hurting parts of me not as something to crush or silence, but as parts that needed care.

It also let the genuine parts of me come through, parts I’d hidden for years. My sensitivity. My softness. The things I once saw as liabilities started to feel like strengths. Because they are. They’re the parts that connect, that care, that notice.

And they were never the problem. Shoving them down was.

From Crisis Mode to Being Present

Feeling cracked open space for connection. For presence. For actually being in my life, instead of just managing it like a crisis on loop.

And yeah, it’s still uncomfortable sometimes. There are days when feeling anything still feels risky. But I’d rather be cracked open than sealed shut.

Because I’ve learned that healing doesn’t happen in the numb. It happens in the feel.

Empathy Starts at Home

I have the ability to use empathy and walk in another’s shoes. But I couldn’t really do that until I learned to sit with my own. Feeling taught me how to hold space, for myself first, and then for others. It’s what makes connection real. What makes healing possible. What turns surviving into living.

So if you’ve been keeping your feelings at arm’s length, I get it. I did too. For a long time, it felt safer that way. But here’s what I’ve learned: the more you let yourself feel, the more you start to heal. Not all at once. Not neatly. But deeply. And honestly, that’s where the good stuff lives.

You’re not weak for feeling. You’re waking up.

Photo by Vojtech Bruzek on Unsplash