Feel Everything: A Veteran's Call to Embrace Authenticity

How can we best manage the emotions we've been taught our whole lives to ignore?

A few weeks ago I was standing in a driveway, shooting the shit with a couple of veterans. As the conversation turned to relationships (technically, divorce), a 20+ year Marine Corps veteran who was on his fourth wife said something I've been thinking about for weeks: "If I've learned anything, it's that you have to speak up. You have to let people know how you're feeling." His advice echoed through my head as I read the new book (especially Chapter 9) by Dr. Sara Kuburic, It's On Me: Accept Hard Truths, Discover Your Self, and Change Your Life.

Kuburic is known as "The Millenial Therapist," but I can't help but think of veterans as I read her advice for anyone who is looking to rebuild a "true Self." Far too many veterans avoid the difficult work of understanding why they’re feeling, acting, and reacting in ways that take them further away from the person they want to be. I’d go as far as to guess that it's the single biggest reason why we struggle so much; we are worried we will be consumed by them. But expressing emotions, far from making us prisoners, liberates us to become more authentic versions of ourselves.?

In a world that often applauds stoicism and strength, celebrating emotional vulnerability remains rare — but it may be the only thing that can ultimately save us. A staggering (but unsurprising) 62% of veterans feel uncomfortable expressing their emotions, fearing judgment from their family, colleagues and most importantly, their own selves. Whether it's the embarrassment of shedding tears at work or even the reluctance to expose our joys and sorrows in therapy, our society tends to harshly judge those who wear their hearts on their sleeves.

But what if we decided that our emotional selves hold the key to a more fulfilling and authentic life? What if we started to understand that, as Kuburic says, our emotions are the very essence of who we are, and when we deny our emotions, we deny ourselves?

The journey towards embracing our emotions requires us to confront a truth deeply embedded in our upbringing — that expressing feelings of sadness, anger or frustration (or even joy!), is simply not allowed. As we grow into adults, our culture further fails to equip us with the tools to manage the ebb and flow of our emotional tides.

Consequently, we find ourselves at a crossroads where we must force ourselves to consciously unlearn old coping techniques in order to build a more meaningful life. We must challenge, over and over again, the military narratives that taught us to suppress, deny, and mistrust our emotions. This is a complete paradigm shift from a world where expressing feelings was often met with rejection and humiliation, where any sign of vulnerability was synonymous with weakness.

Research tells us something fascinating and helpful about emotions — that feelings, whether positive or negative, typically only last in your body for about 90 seconds. Ninety seconds, a shorter amount of time than most of us spent in the gas chamber in boot camp!?

So why do these emotions feel like they last so much longer? It’s the thoughts and stories we weave around these feelings that perpetuate our emotional rollercoaster. So it is in that small, precious space, right after the initial jolt of emotion, that we truly find our power — the power to choose our response.

To understand our emotions, Kuburic defines them as "the experience of being moved." How powerful is that? Shouldn’t we strive for more movement and transformation in our lives? Emotions are the compass guiding us toward our values, which are the bedrock of our authentic selves. When we deny our emotions, we deny our values, and risk feeling stuck in a life that doesn't align with who we truly are.

But acknowledging emotions is only the first step; we must then learn to notice, observe, and process our feelings without being consumed by them. It’s also critical that we move beyond obvious emotions like happy, sad and angry, and dig deeper to find more nuanced descriptions such as frustration, overwhelm, apprehension, and grief. These more precise feelings then become our map through the intricate terrain of our authentic selves.?

If you struggle in the moment to manage powerful, overwhelming emotions, you’re not alone. So Kuburic gives us a powerful question we can ask ourselves so we can not feel so quite overwhelmed: Am I feeling multiple emotions at the same time? When we name that perhaps we’re feeling both sad and a sense of relief, both happy and disappointed, it dilutes each emotion’s individual strength, allowing us to respond with more grace and understanding.

As we go through this process, validation becomes crucial. I’m not going to deny that seeking external validation is important — we all need people in our lives who will tell us we’re good people (assuming we are behaving like good people), but there are times when we are the only ones who are available validate our own feelings. Internal validation is a powerful skill that, once learned and paired with self-compassion, is able to prevent the destructive actions often borne out of vets’ unprocessed emotions.

Speaking of self-compassion, Kuburic encourages us to "turn toward" our emotions, as an act of “having our own backs” and a conscious choice to offer ourselves grace. When we turn towards ourselves, we start to realize that our feelings are not foes, but companions on our journey toward authenticity. We must at all costs avoid self-abandonment, the opposite of turning toward, to find our most powerful acts of healing. As we learn to trust ourselves again, we build a foundation for genuine connections with others.

Kuburic ends her chapter “Feel It All” with this quote: “Let’s stop fighting or trying to control our emotions! Trust me, the harder we try, the harder they will retaliate. And I think we all know that the truth tends to come out eventually. Our feelings are not beckoning us like sirens seducing sailors to their deaths. They are not ill-willed; they are the only way you can be you. Emotions are like a tide that will go in or out regardless of your permission. But instead of fighting, swimming against the current, and being tossed by the waves, allow their power and movement to buoy you, to take you toward your Self.”

If you’re a veteran who’s struggling to find your authentic self (and who among us isn't; it's an ongoing process), I highly recommend you pick up her book. It’s time we veterans stop the futile battle against our emotions and instead allow them to point us toward our authentic selves. For within our emotional selves lies the true essence of being human — and that is a journey worth taking, no matter how challenging, for the authenticity it promises.