Emotions don't heal with a hammer

Here's what to use instead

Oct 29, 2024

I’m a therapist who loves writing and explaining concepts in ways you can grasp, hoping to inspire the desire to pursue the art of growing because you are important and all the people you love are too.

Hi Refreshers!

Have you heard someone say, “Please don’t try to fix me!” when you feel like you’re only trying to help?

Why is it that people don’t want fixing, but people keep trying to fix?

And how do you handle wanting to help, but you’re not sure how to help in a way that’s actually helpful?

Here are a few things I’ve noticed about the experience of being fixed:

People feel like a project
Solution giving downplays their emotions
A pressure to become happy for the sake of others comfort
People don’t feel like they can just be themselves
An attempt to fix rubs raw the already open wound
People don’t feel heard

Here are a few things I’ve noticed about the experience of wanting to fix:

Feeling helpless is overwhelming to them
People want to help but don’t know how
Natural problem-solvers have a hard time seeing another way
A childhood that demanded their assistance at a young age
A need to feel in control of something that feels out of control
A tendency to take too much responsibility
Shutting it all down is how they grew up

Hammer and tape fixes

Maybe you’ve got someone in your life who’s depressed, highly anxious, has money problems, marriage or friendship problems, addiction or are overly negative about life. Sometimes people seem like they’re screaming to be fixed!

Don’t get me wrong; an urge to fix is understandable in some of these situations.

And solutions really can be helpful at times, even if it’s just a temporary band-aid. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with being a problem-solver--these are good traits in many situations.

When we try to fix we’re trying to bring something into stability. So the idea of fixing is not bad or even an incorrect way of looking at a problem.

The issue begins when an attempt to fix actually makes things worse for someone. And trying to fix emotions in the ways people normally try to fix them is a good example.

When people say, “Please don’t try to fix me,” what they really mean is, don’t give them shutdown phrases to their emotions when a gushing emotional wound often needs something different to heal.

People are really trying to say, “Don’t try and fix my emotions.”

Trying to fix emotions is someone taking out their toolbox and using a screwdriver, hammer, blue painter’s tape, and anything else they can get their hands on to get the gush to stop.

Here are some of those toolbox hammer and tape fixing phrases:

“You don’t really feel that way.”
“I know you don’t mean that.”
“You shouldn’t feel that way.”
“Please don’t feel that way.”
“Don’t tell me things like this.”
“You need to smile.”
“Aren’t you happy?”
“Doesn’t that make you happy?”
“How can you be sad about this?”

With these hammer and tape shutdown phrases, the fixer ends up saying, “Please stop feeling this emotion it’s making me uncomfortable.”

There’s an attempt to stop the emotional experience of someone because it feels overwhelming to the fixer. Sometimes the above phrases are an attempt to help the person feel better, but minimizing someone’s emotions doesn’t usually help someone feel better. It can actually make the emotional experience worse because now the person feels more alone and unheard.

Another point: shutting down emotions doesn’t actually fix anything. The drips are going to keep coming no matter what way you try to turn it off. Whatever was surfacing for that person will re-surface and start leaking and then gushing again once it gets re-triggered at some point. It’s just a temporary shutoff that does more harm than good. And when the pressure of emotion builds for someone, the gush will only get bigger!

People try to fix emotions with hammer and tape.

We need to shift our mindset from fixing to healing.

Instead of shutting it all down, we can learn to get comfortable letting it flow, letting the pressure of the gush drain out.

As we allow it to flow, we can learn to help contain, surround and hold which is a more calming experience than trying to get emotions to just stop, which keeps the pressure building.

Containment can slow down the gush and make it safer. It’ll eventually be less of a gush and more of a normal flow.

So what tool do I use instead of a hammer and tape to contain the gush?

If you want to help someone with their emotional experience here’s what you do: you help hold and contain their emotions.

With this, there’s a willingness to experience your own discomfort amidst their emotions, for the sake of being present with them in theirs.

Containing emotion is healing, trying to fix through shutdown is a temporary bandaid and is just covering up an issue.

Instead of spreading out your toolkit with its pliers and wrenches and blue painter’s tape, really getting in there and trying to fix the emotions of your friend or family member in a frantic attempt to shut it down, try getting a bucket and just letting it flow.

As the gush comes pouring out into the bucket, here are the types of healing bucket phrases you can say to hold and contain:

“You’re going through a lot right now and I’m here for you.”
“It sounds like you’re feeling so much sadness right now.”
“The loss you’re experiencing is heart wrenching and I know it’s hard to get up every morning.”
“You love your sister and she really hurt you.”
“It makes sense that you feel mad at your spouse after what seems like a betrayal.”

See how the bucket phrases don’t minimize or discount the emotion? You’re just acknowledging the situation and your loved one and how they are experiencing it. You aren’t trying to talk them out of it.

This is healing, not fixing.

You’re saying, “Yes, I see you in this.”

Your loved one can pour out all of their anguish, and yes, it will splish-splash on you as your hands are holding steady the bucket, containing it for them.

But guess what? They’ll feel better with it all in the bucket and the healing bucket phrases you used.

And when this happens, the gusher is actually more in the process of being healed by the containment of the bucket than if you were to use a hammer and tape fixes to shut it down.

Refreshing part: you did your part in helping a loved one through an emotional experience and you didn’t make them feel worse! In fact, you may have helped them move forward a bit in their healing process.

Thoughts?

Comment and let me know what you think about the hammer or bucket phrases!

Heather

Refreshing Salt & Light

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