Have you ever had someone attempt to “talk over” you? That’s when another lives by the premise that “the loudest one wins” and just wants to drown you out. They not only want the last word but the only word.

That’s what we do when we want to deny our feelings. We “talk over” our feelings. We start to justify them or philosophize about them instead of feeling them. Our penchant of “talking over” them is our attempt to make them go away.

The strategy has never worked for longer than a minute. I’m reminded of Dr. Dave Dobson’s analogy of trying to hold a beachball under water. It takes all your effort and you eventually lose the battle.

Your feelings are not going away until you let them have their “say.”

Whatever sensations we attempt to “shout down” will hang around until we notice them and fully feel them. They are immune to our bombast.

I wrote about angry people a couple of weeks ago. Many of them attempt to bury their anger. That never works. Just remember Dr. Dave’s beachball. The result of burying or “talking over” their anger, insures that it will eventually come out in a torrent.

The recommendation is not to “let it out” and spew on everyone in sight, but more so to “let it in” and feel it rather than fight it.

Whatever sensations you have going on, notice them first. Take stock of your feelings and notice that you have anger or unhappiness or whatever you are feeling inside of you. Once you recognize them and give them credence, it’s time to feel them and let them have their say.

For many, feeling our feelings is a fate worse than death. Feelings puncture the myth we have created about ourselves in our head – the image we are attempting to sell – that we’re strong and unaffected by our feelings. That is eternal hogwash.

Feelings can’t be shooed away with a soliloquy; they need to be felt in order to metabolize.

Noticing and sitting with your feelings is the remedy for letting the air out of the beachball.

Talking over will eventually take you under. Start to monitor rather than ignore your sensations and feel what your body is urging you to feel. It works a lot better than lips that aren’t sealed.

All the best,

John