I stopped justifying my feelings to anyone, including myself, and it has been the most freeing thing I’ve ever done. If you want to learn how to stop justifying your feelings and be free, you first have to realize that needing a reason to feel good or bad is a trap that is slowly killing your freedom.
Prefer to watch? I’ve put my video below or if you’re a reader simply continue reading the post.
The Justification Trap
You don’t need a reason to feel anything. You don’t need a reason to feel at peace, to feel joy, or to feel angry, sad, or frustrated. You can feel whatever way you want to feel simply because you want to feel that way. Most of the time in our lives, we attach a reason or a justification to how we feel.
We say, “Well, I feel this way because this person said this to me,” or “I feel this way because this situation happened.” This is the logical, thinking brain coming up with a narrative and a storyline about why it is valid for us to feel a certain way. We get conditioned to do this because, for most of our lives, our feelings get invalidated.
People will ask us, “Well, why do you feel that way?” And we have to come up with some kind of story about why we feel that way for them to accept that our feeling is valid.
I want you to set yourself free from that little loop, for now and forever if you can. You can do this by simply remembering that you have the power to feel whatever way you want to feel.
Embrace Your Emotional Freedom
If feeling the way that you’re feeling is good for you right now, then feel that way. If it’s what you want to feel, honor that. Love that part of yourself enough to allow it to feel whatever it wants to feel, even if it’s what we call a “bad” feeling. There is no such thing as a bad feeling. It’s just a feeling. It’s an energy, a state of emotion. Let it flow. Let it be here. Feel it.
But you don’t need a reason to feel at peace, either. If you don’t need a reason to feel bad and can just feel bad because you want to, you also don’t need a reason to feel good. You can just feel good because you want to. You can change your feeling from any state to any other state simply because you want to feel that way.
A Morning Ritual to Choose Your Feelings
This means you can wake up feeling however you want to wake up feeling. One of my favorite exercises is to wake up in the morning and ask myself a simple question. Here’s how it works.
- First thing in the morning, before your feet hit the floor, ask yourself, “What do I choose to create?”
- The first thing I choose to create is a way of feeling. So, I’ll answer by saying, “I choose to create the feeling of being excited,” or “I choose to create the feeling of being at peace.”
- Then, I go from there and ask, “What do I want to create with that feeling of peace or excitement?” I decide I want to go create whatever project or task I want to get done that day from that state of feeling.
When my feet hit the floor and I’m headed to the shower, I’m already feeling how I want to feel for the entire day. This sets me up for creativity and success. Sometimes I’ll say I want to feel super excited and super creative, and then I’ll have a bazillion ideas bubbling out of me by the time I get out of the shower. I’m racing off into the day because I have so much I’m excited to get done.
Why You Must Stop Justifying Your Feelings and Be Free
I’ve been living this way for about seven years, since I really started exercising and actualizing this idea that we can wake up and choose what we want to feel. We have complete freedom to feel anything we want to feel, and we don’t need a reason for it.
So, stop justifying your emotions to yourself. Stop justifying your emotions to others. Stop coming up with reasons why it’s okay for you to feel a certain way or why you have to feel a certain way. Just feel however you feel. Love yourself enough to allow that, and then go feel what you want to feel simply because it’s good to feel it.
If you are ready to embark on a deep journey to completely create a life defined around feeling good and living a life that you love, you can explore the many resources we have available for you. Take a look at what we offer in our community and get started in the “Start Here” section.
