Wait, what? Justify my emotions? Why do I do that? I shouldn’t have to explain or justify why I feel the way I feel. Aren’t I allowed to just feel? Feel whatever, whenever, without having to explain myself?
Sadly, this doesn’t always seem to ring true. Often, I find myself explaining to someone why I’m crying or why I’m upset. Have you? Now, this isn’t belittling communication because it is important to communicate your emotions. But communication is separate than justification. Communication is here how I feel and that's that. Justification is explaining why you feel what you feel and looking for the other person to validate those feelings.
Justification insinuates that you are in the wrong for something and have to explain yourself. Communication states that these are my emotions. Which your emotions are never wrong because they are just that… your own.
I don't know about you but I often find myself doing the latter, the justification. I didn't even realizing I was doing this until someone pointed it out. I think it stems from growing up when we justified to our parents our reactions, decisions, etc. I just don't think I ever grew out of it. I still feel the need to justify to my parents the most with what I do, why I do it, and how I'm feeling. But I'm an adult. I don't owe them justification, or anyone for that matter. My decisions and my feelings are choices I'm allowed to make on my own, without justification.
One of the biggest feelings I tend to justify is sadness, crying in particular. I’ve often wondered why I couldn’t cry in front of people. Best I've come up with is that it’s truly a fear of judgement and sometimes a lack of comfortability. I'm operating in fear of what others think because society told me that if I cry “I'm weak” or “too emotional.” I don't know about you, but I know I can’t count the amount of times I’ve heard those statements.
However, rarely have I heard the statement “great job for processing your emotions and letting them out” or “you have great coping skills because you deal with your sadness.” Oh wait, I have never heard those statements, minus maybe therapy.
If only… If only I, or all of us, could hear those phrases and know that crying is okay; know that expression of emotion is okay.
Even beyond that if only I would have been taught how to cope with emotions or tears in a healthy way. Instead of being treated with shame, or judgment around emotions. No wonder so many people yell because they weren't taught how to handle the anger.
I used to hear statements from my ex when I cried like “ya, throw yourself a pity party.” Which just made me feel even more guilty for crying. His manipulation made my emotion of sadness a bad thing, as if I was doing something wrong. Which I’ve carried with me for a long time and it most definitely stemmed earlier than that. But those statements layered another level of guilt and insecurity around my emotions.
It takes extreme self awareness and work daily for me to continue to overpower these engrained thoughts. To validate that it’s okay to cry and feel. It’s okay to express emotions for coping and healing. It does not make me any less of a person for crying. Heck it arguably makes me a better person because I'm getting in touch with my emotions and learning to process them in a healthy way!
I’ve heard people laugh or mock me, or others, when they got teary eyed over something. Because they didn't believe it was a “valid reason” to get teary over. Excuse me? When did anyone else earn the right to police my emotions? When did anyone get hired for the job of emotional manager?
You don’t need permission to have emotions. You don’t need to justify your emotions. And you sure as heck don’t need to feel that there any emotion is right or wrong.
They are YOUR emotions. They belong to YOU. No one can dictate them or decide what to do with them but YOU.
So go on, cry, feel, do whatever you need in each moment. And leave the justifying at the door!
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