A lot of people I work with worry that their feelings are not enough.

They wonder if they should be feeling a certain way, or if their experience is “bad enough” to seek out therapy. Some feel unsure as to why they have even stepped through the door. Perhaps they’ve been feeling flat, not quite engaged in day-to-day life, or sensing that something, a spark, a sense of joy, is missing.

These feelings are often accompanied by guilt.

I should be happy. I should be at a different stage by now. I shouldn’t feel this way.

There is often a quiet minimising alongside comparison with others: “other people have it much worse…”, or “I know I’m being silly, but…”. When there is no clear reason to point to, it can feel easier to doubt our own experience than to tune into our inner world.

Coping, Minimising, and Pushing Our Inner World Aside

For many people, this kind of discomfort is easy to dismiss because there is no obvious crisis. There may be family to care for, work to keep  up with, or a constant sense of needing to stay on top of things, or pressure to get it right.

Throwing ourselves into doing can become a way of coping, not always  consciously, but because there doesn’t seem to be space to pause.

When life is busy, our inner world often gets pushed to the edges. Not because it doesn’t matter, but because attending to it can feel like a luxury, or even something we haven’t earned.

Over time, many of us learn ways of managing discomfort that help us function. We learn to minimise, to distract, to keep going. These  strategies often develop for good reason.

They allow us to get through, to meet expectations placed on us by ourselves or others, to survive.

But they can also mean that what feels uncomfortable inside goes unspoken. When there is no obvious crisis and we are coping on the  surface,  it can feel easier, and safer, not to draw attention to what feels unsettled or out of place.

What Our Feelings Can Tell Us

When given some attention, our emotions can begin to tell a story, not always a clear one, and not one that needs to be rushed.

For some, they show up quietly, as a vague sense of flatness or unease. For others, they are much louder, persistent, intrusive,  or hard to ignore, yet still feel difficult to voice.

This can be especially true when we’ve learned, over time, not to take up space  with our inner experience, or when it hasn’t felt safe or acceptable to name what’s going on inside.

These experiences are rarely a problem to be solved; more often, they are a sign that something within us is asking to be  listened to.

You don’t need to have a clear explanation or a dramatic reason to begin paying attention to yourself.

Noticing and Exploring in Counselling

Sometimes noticing that something doesn’t feel quite right is enough of a starting point. Having space to explore that in  counselling, without judgement or the need to justify yourself can allow what’s stirring inside to be heard and understood. These feelings are the subtle shifts that plant the seeds for meaningful change.