By Dr. Femke E. Bakker

My dear one. I just want you to know: it’s great that you’re feeling. Really.

I know it might not feel great right now, like your stomach is curled up in a ball or your throat is doing that closed-off thing. But the fact that you can feel? That’s actually a good thing. Do you know how many people can’t? How many people push their emotions down until they can’t even recognize them anymore, until the only way the body gets a word in is through exhaustion or a random crying episode in the car? You can feel. That means you already have a compass in your hands. And you can learn to read it.

The shift I made

For years, I had plenty of emotions I didn’t want to feel. Sadness. Loneliness. That persistent but ‘hidden’ ache of not being enough before being loved. Whether or not those feelings were based in reality didn’t much matter. I felt them, and often. One day, I started to notice a pattern: every unpleasant emotion I had was connected to a thought that wasn’t helping me. If I felt abandoned, there was a thought feeding that feeling. If I felt small, there was a thought feeding that too. And that’s when something opened up. If my emotions respond to my thoughts, then my emotions can guide me back toward thoughts that support me. That’s the compass.

What your emotions are actually telling you

Here’s the rule of thumb I use every day. When I think something kind or encouraging about myself, I feel better. When I think something critical, blaming, or guilt-soaked, I feel worse.

That’s really the whole thing.

An unpleasant emotion doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’ve stepped into thought territory that isn’t serving you. The good news is that you can step somewhere better, just not all at once. You can’t leap from I’m awful to I’m amazing in a single breath (I’ve tried, it doesn’t work), but you can find a thought that feels a little lighter than where you are right now.

I remember sitting in my car one morning, running late, completely convinced I was the most disorganized person alive. That thought was doing real damage to my nervous system. So instead of fighting it, I tried something smaller: this is a hard morning, and hard mornings happen. I didn’t believe it fully. But something in my chest released, just slightly. That’s enough. That’s the needle moving.

Your body will tell you when you’ve found it. A small release in your stomach. A slightly easier breath. The tiniest sense of relief. You don’t need a dramatic shift. You just need a direction.

I first came across this idea in a book by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Over time I made it my own, blending it with selfgentleness and what I know from psychology, learning not just to reach for better-feeling thoughts, but to allow the ones I’m having without judgment first.

How I actually do this

When a difficult emotion surfaces, I don’t rush to fix it. I just notice it. I feel sad. I feel anxious. I feel tight in my chest. That’s step one, and it sounds almost insultingly simple, but pausing long enough to name it is its own kind of gentleness.

Then I ask: what am I thinking right now that might be creating this? Usually it doesn’t take long to find. The thought is right there, saying something like you should have handled that differently or why can’t you just get it together. (You know the voice. We all know the voice.)

From there, I try to find a thought that’s just a little better. Not the opposite. Not a forced positive. Just slightly less heavy. From I completely messed that up to it makes sense that I’m finding this hard. I check in with my body: is that slightly easier? Even a tiny bit? If yes, I stay there for a moment. If it makes me feel the same or worse, I try another angle.

This is a process. Some days it works quickly. Other days, nothing shifts. And that’s fine too, because there’s always the option of going neutral.

When nothing seems to work

Sometimes thoughts are just too activated to soften. On those days, I don’t try to improve anything. I put the thought down and place my attention somewhere uncharged: the tree outside my window, the temperature of the room, the feeling of my feet on the floor. I let my nervous system settle a little before I go back.

Or I give myself permission to take a break from the thought entirely. An hour. A day. I can come back to this if I want, but right now I’m setting it down. The amount of space that opens when you stop wrestling with something, even temporarily, is remarkable.

This is what being gentle with yourself actually looks like in practice. Not pretending the thought isn’t there. Not battling it. Just not letting it be the only thing that gets to speak.

What it feels like when it works

When this really lands, it doesn’t feel like a big breakthrough. Rather, it feels like a small relief. Like something that had been pulling at you and now loosens its grip, just enough that you can breathe normally again. I notice it most in the moments after, when I realize I’m not thinking about the hard thing anymore, when I’ve moved on without forcing myself to.

That’s what I want for you. Not a permanent solution, because emotions aren’t a problem to be solved. But a way of moving through them that doesn’t require you to be hard on yourself in the process.

Not sure what kind of relationship you have with yourself? This short quiz helps you see where you tend to be hardest on yourself, and where there might be room for something gentler.

All love, Femke