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BPD LIVING WITH BPD

How Accepting Emotions Can Improve

Emotional Health
By Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, PhD Updated on April 04, 2022

Medically reviewed by Rachel Goldman, PhD, FTOS

Fact checked by Karen Cilli

Noa/Getty Images

Table of Contents

What Is Emotional Acceptance?

What Accepting Emotions Means

Accepting Emotions With BPD

Benefits

How to Accept Emotions

VIEW ALL
It’s very hard to deal with painful, extreme, and sometimes even scary
emotions. However, accepting your emotions can actually help improve
your emotion regulation, lead to fewer mood swings, and improve
emotional balance.

People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and other psychiatric

disorders that involve intense emotional experiences have trouble
accepting emotions. They may engage in unhelpful behaviors to avoid
experiencing those painful feelings.

This article discusses emotional acceptance and why it can be so difficult

for some people. It also explores why accepting emotions is so important
to mental well-being.

Press Play for Advice On Dealing With Difficult Emotions

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell
Mind Podcast, featuring actor Skyh Black, shares how to embrace
uncomfortable feelings, rather than suppress them. Click below to
listen now.

Subscribe Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts

What Is Emotional Acceptance?

Often when you have an uncomfortable feeling, such as sadness, fear, or
shame, your first reaction is to reject that feeling. If it feels like a "bad"
feeling, you might tell yourself that you don't want to experience it. As a
result, you may then do something to get rid of the feeling. This might
involve trying to push it away or using drugs or alcohol to feel better.
No one wants to walk around feeling emotional pain all the time, but
when you reject your emotions, you may make things worse. Emotions
serve various purposes, including providing helpful information about the
world. This means that getting rid of or pushing away emotions is not the
best idea.

An alternative to pushing away or stifling your emotions is learning to

accept your emotional experiences. This is known as emotional
acceptance.

Accepting means that you practice allowing your feelings to be what

they are without judging them or trying to change them. [1] It involves
being aware of your emotions and accepting that these feelings exist
without trying to suppress or push them away.

Certainly no one wants to walk around feeling emotional pain all the time,
but when you reject your emotions, you may actually make things worse.
Emotions serve a variety of purposes, including providing helpful
information about the world. This means that getting rid of or pushing
away emotions is not the best idea.

An alternative to pushing away or stifling your emotions is learning to

accept your emotional experiences. Accepting means that you practice
allowing your emotions to be what they are without judging them or
trying to change them. [1]

Recap
Acceptance means letting go of attempts to control your emotions and
learning that emotions themselves cannot harm you, although the
things you may do to try to get rid of emotions, such as misusing
alcohol, can harm you. [2]

Related: The 6 Types of Basic Emotions and Their Effect on Human

Behavior

Accepting Emotions Is Not Resigning Yourself

to Pain
It is essential to make the distinction between acceptance and resignation.
Accepting emotions does not mean that you resign yourself to constantly
feeling terrible or wallowing in pain. It also doesn't mean that you hold on
to painful emotions or try to push yourself to experience emotional
distress.

Acceptance simply means being aware of your emotions and

accepting them for what they are right now, knowing that they won't
last.

As a metaphor for acceptance, imagine that you are a soldier who has
fought a long battle with your emotions. Acceptance is the act of putting
down your weapons and walking away from the fight. You are not
resigning yourself to be beaten up by your feelings. Instead, you are
simply letting go of the struggle. [3]

In some ways, accepting emotions means also accepting that emotions

will change. When you are happy, you have to accept that happiness is a
short-term condition—you will not always be happy. This goes for every
emotion, from fear to anxiety to sadness. Feelings are fleeting and usually
go away within seconds, minutes, or hours.

Related: Link Between Happiness and Stress Relief

Why Do People With BPD Have Trouble

Accepting Emotions?
There are a few reasons why people with BPD, in particular, have trouble
accepting emotions, although it is important to note that everyone has
trouble accepting emotions sometimes.

People with BPD are often raised in emotionally invalidating

environments. These are environments where feelings are not accepted.
Sometimes people with BPD were punished for expressing feelings, or
sometimes they were told that they were weak for having feelings. This
can lead a person with BPD to have trouble accepting their own emotions
in adult life. [4]

People with BPD experience very intense emotions, making it harder to

accept these feelings. People with BPD will often describe feeling that they
are afraid their emotions will “overwhelm” or “destroy” them. As a
result, many people with BPD feel very afraid of their emotions and are
convinced they cannot tolerate their feelings. [5]

Recap
Certain mental health conditions such as BPD can make emotional
acceptance more difficult. When people experience emotional
invalidation and intense emotions, they may be afraid of allowing
themselves to experience these feelings.

Related: Why Can't I Cry Even Though I'm Sad?

Why Accepting Emotions Is Helpful

Why is accepting your emotions helpful? What is the point of trying to
accept your emotions, and wouldn’t it be easier to simply get rid of them?
Well, no, it isn’t easy to get rid of emotions.

In fact, many people have tried to get rid of their emotions with little
success. What they have learned, and what research supports, is that
it is very difficult, if not impossible, to simply get rid of an emotion.
[6]

You have emotions for a reason, so you shouldn't want to get rid of them
completely. Emotions are part of a complex system that helps you decide
what you should stay away from and what you should approach. Emotions
also help you maintain lasting relationships with other people.

Ignoring emotions leads to poor decision-making. Therefore, accepting

emotions is helpful because you can learn important information when
listening to what you are feeling.

How to Practice Accepting Emotions

Fortunately, you can learn to get better at accepting your emotions. This
doesn't mean that this process is always easy. Difficult or intense
emotions don't feel very good, so your instincts may tell you to avoid
them.

With persistent practice, though, you can learn how to be more accepting
of your emotions. Strategies that can help you become better at
understanding and accepting your emotions include:

Mindfulness is a practice that focuses on becoming more aware of the

present moment. A core component of mindfulness is learning to observe
your thoughts and emotions completely and non-judgmentally.
Meditation can also be helpful for building awareness and acceptance of
emotional experiences. Mindfulness meditation, or the practice of being
aware of both your internal and external experiences, can be tremendously
useful as you are learning how to accept your emotions. You can try a
sitting meditation and mindful breathing exercises. [7]
Psychotherapy can also be helpful if you have trouble accepting
emotions. Talk to your doctor or consult a mental health professional for
further advice and treatment. Some types of therapy that can be
particularly helpful include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical
behavior therapy (DBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and
mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR).

Recap
Self-help techniques such as mindfulness and meditation can build
your abilities to accept emotions. If you are still struggling,
psychotherapy can also be beneficial.

Related: How Accepting Emotions Can Improve Emotional Health

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is emotional health?

What are some examples of emotional

avoidance?
 Is there such a thing as toxic positivity?

A Word From Verywell

While you might feel tempted to simply avoid feeling negative emotions,
doing so tends to make things worse in the long run. It can also lead to
unhealthy coping mechanisms that can hurt your health and well-being.

When you learn how to accept emotions, you take away their power to
hurt you. Building this skill can be challenging, but it can result in better
emotional regulation over time. [9] If you are struggling with emotional
avoidance, talk to your healthcare provider or a mental health
professional.

Read Next: How to Find Emotional Healing

9 Sources

By Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, PhD

Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and associate professor
of psychology at Eastern Connecticut State University.

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