Whenever you go all the way with telling your truth, you will be confronted by the reactions and responses such truth telling elicits ... Feeling Fallout.
Feeling Fallout can be mild to extreme and always occurs when uncomfortable truth is shared. And because no-one likes feeling uncomfortable, sharing deeper emotional truth is often avoided because of the feeling fallout.
I once had a client say to me that she was only willing to tell her truth when she could be certain that no-one would get upset, thereby ensuring that she never went all the way with her truth when things got emotionally charged. Net result ... nothing much got resolved and she was often left feeling anxious and incomplete.
You cannot resolve conflict if you are not willing to share the whole of your truth (which includes how you are feeling) AND be willing to hear and receive the others’ whole truth including their feelings. It’s not difficult to share your feelings ... it may feel challenging but it’s not hard. It’s just unfamiliar because you have been conditioned to be “nice” and “polite” and avoid conflict at all costs.
So how can you prepare yourself for feeling fallout?
- Remember that feelings are simply energy-in-motion - they let you know how you feel and what you are making things mean, and how the other feels and what they are making things mean.
- Feelings are not facts, they exist to be acknowledged, validated, felt and released.
- You cannot have an effective conversation in the middle of a feeling reaction so when feelings arise, breathe ... allow and let them move through you ... and they will if you let them. As Jill Bolte-Taylor observed: It takes 90 seconds for the feeling to move through you and be done.
- Expect some feeling fallout when addressing conflict and remember to keep communicating until the energy shifts.
Simple and, once again, not always easy when you start. And the more you practice, the easier it will become.
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"... emotions heal when they are heard and validated."
Jill Bolte-Taylor
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