Years ago, I saw a reality TV contestant (formerly a therapist) post to Instagram in a T-shirt that said feel all the feels. Her caption gushed about the need to let ourselves feel sad, and I thought to myself… now why on earth would anyone want to feel sad?

Years later, therapy helped me understand the psychology underneath this popular slogan. But I completely get why so many people get tripped up by the concept.

That’s why I’m going to lay out why we should feel our feelings, from the perspective of someone who used to roll his eyes at T-shirts that said things like feel all the feels.

Why feel your feelings?

As I discussed here, our minds and bodies use emotions to send us messages, but we can choose to ignore them. Maybe we’re too busy, or maybe we were never taught to feel them.

The problem is that they don’t always go away. Our minds and bodies want us to take these messages seriously, so if we push them aside, they can remain unread like an email. The more we ignore them, the more we fall behind. And this comes with consequences that are much worse than a cluttered inbox.

1. We miss useful data

Our minds and bodies often use emotions to send us information before we’ve consciously thought through a situation. If we ignore this data, we’re missing out on a valuable way to make decisions.

And if we ignore it for too long, that data can become harder to interpret. Let me explain with an example.

Suppose you have a friend who often cancels plans at the last minute. The first time, you may feel some anger, which is often a signal that something feels unfair and you need to address it.

The next time it happens, you feel angrier because your body and mind have spotted a pattern. They turn up the intensity so you listen, but you ignore the anger to avoid conflict. By the fifteenth time, you’re so enraged that you want to end the friendship.

The problem: the messenger is getting louder because it has gone unheard, and we often mistake that intensity for a bigger message. But the message may be the same one you received the first time: call out the problem or set a boundary.

2. Our bodies can stay on guard

As I’ve mentioned, emotions are more than how we feel on the inside. They can affect our bodies through physical behaviors, like clenching your jaw, or automatic responses such as a racing heart.

That’s why suppressing emotions can have physical consequences. Over time, it may contribute to chronic stress, as our bodies remain tense to guard against threats. That state can intensify physical issues:

• Tension can contribute to pain or make it worse, including back pain and arthritis.
• When the nervous system stays on high alert, everyday stressors can feel bigger, and the body may respond with a racing heart, higher blood pressure, or the activation of stress hormones such as cortisol.
• Over time, chronic stress can affect the immune system and sleep.
• Tension in our shoulders, neck, and head can contribute to tension headaches and may play a role in migraine triggers.

That last point hits home for me. I used to suffer from migraines, but after years of processing emotions, they’ve largely gone away. While I cannot prove the connection—and multiple factors often contribute to medical issues—it’s one reason I take this point so seriously.

3. Our minds can get stuck

The long-term consequences for mental health can be just as serious. When we habitually suppress emotions, we can create conditions that worsen depression, anxiety, and overall well-being:

• When an emotion isn’t processed, it can get reactivated when we think about the situation again. And it may even return with more force. That can quickly become exhausting when someone constantly replays situations that trigger intense feelings.
• Unprocessed emotions can keep the nervous system on high alert, which can make anxiety and other emotions feel more intense, urgent, and harder to calm.
• When we don’t move through an emotion, our minds often circle the situation again and again. That mental loop, often called rumination, can intensify anxiety and depression. That’s why suppressed emotions can feed negative thought patterns.

These ideas led me to have a major unlock: We don’t feel our feelings because we want to feel sad. It’s because that sadness often stays with us, whether we like it or not, until we let ourselves experience it.

In other words, you feel your feelings because you no longer want to feel sad.

We don’t feel our feelings because we want to feel sad. It’s because that sadness often stays with us, whether we like it or not, until we let ourselves experience it.

Still skeptical?

I get it. When I started therapy, this all felt so woo-woo that I struggled to wrap my head around it. If that’s you, I recommend you explore the large body of research and literature on the topic. One great resource is The Body Keeps the Score, a science-driven look at how trauma and emotion can show up in the body.

And if you’re ready to learn more, I’ll continue to explore emotions in more depth, including with an article on how to feel your feelings.