Stop Trying to Fix How You Feel

Why constantly managing, fixing, and numbing your emotions is wearing you out and what to do instead.

“I think something is wrong with me.”

She said it before I could even finish saying good morning.

It was 9 a.m. on a Monday. Coffee still warm in my hand. First session of the week. And there it was. The sentence I’ve heard in a hundred different ways from a hundred different women.

Something is wrong with me.

She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t falling apart. She was just sitting there, exhausted, cataloging all the ways she’d tried to fix herself that weekend. The meditation app. The self-help book. The emergency call to her sister. The late-night scroll through Instagram looking for answers.

“Every time I feel something uncomfortable,” she said, “I panic. Like, I need to make it stop immediately. And when I can’t...” She trailed off. “I just think I’m broken.”

Here’s what I told her, and what I wish someone had told me a long time ago.

She wasn’t broken. She was just never taught that feelings don’t need fixing.

Here’s what nobody tells you about being a woman in transition, whether you’re navigating divorce, career change, empty nest, loss, or just the unsettling middle of life: You’ve spent decades being the emotional manager for everyone else. Now you’re trying to manage your own feelings the same way.

But feelings don’t work like that.

The fix-it trap

We’ve been conditioned to believe that negative emotions are problems to solve.

Sad? Find happiness. Anxious? Find calm. Angry? Find peace. Lonely? Find people.

It’s self-help at its finest. The idea that you’re always one strategy, one purchase, one affirmation away from not feeling bad anymore.

But here’s the truth that changed everything for her:

Emotions aren’t problems. They’re information.

They’re your internal GPS telling you where you are right now. Not where you should be. Just where you are.

What “sitting with it” actually means

Sitting with your feelings doesn’t mean wallowing in them.

It doesn’t mean spiraling into a Netflix-binge, wine-soaked puddle of despair. (Though we’ve all been there, and that’s okay too.)

It means creating a small, manageable space where you allow the feeling to exist without immediately trying to fix it, numb it, or explain it away.

Think of it like this: You wouldn’t yell at a crying child to stop crying, hand them a drink, and distract them with a screen all at once. You’d sit with them. Hold space. Let them feel what they’re feeling.

You deserve the same tenderness.

How she actually did it

Here’s what worked when she finally stopped running:

1. She named it out loud

“I’m feeling anxious right now.”

Not “I’m anxious about the meeting” or “I’m anxious because of my childhood trauma” or any other story. Just the raw fact of the feeling.

Naming removes the mystery. It’s hard to be terrified of something once you’ve called it by its name.

2. She located it in her body

Where did she feel the anxiety? Chest? Throat? Stomach?

She’d put her hand there. Not to make it go away, but to say, “I notice you.”

Feelings live in the body. When you bring your attention to the physical sensation, you move from thinking about the emotion to experiencing it, which paradoxically makes it more bearable.

3. She got curious instead of critical

Instead of “Why am I like this?” she asked, “What are you trying to tell me?”

Feelings are messengers. They’re not very articulate, but they’re trying to communicate something important.

Anxiety might be saying: “Something here doesn’t feel safe yet.”
Sadness might be saying: “You lost something that mattered.”
Anger might be saying: “A boundary was crossed.”

4. She gave it a time limit

Make it practical.

She’d set a timer for 10 minutes. During that time, she’d sit with the feeling. She wouldn’t try to change it or fix it or understand it. She’d just be with it.

Ten minutes. That’s it.

Most feelings, when you actually allow them, move through pretty quickly. It’s the resistance that makes them stick around.

5. She stopped apologizing for it

No more “Sorry, I’m being emotional” or “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Feelings don’t need justification. You don’t have to earn the right to feel what you feel.

The thing about acceptance

Acceptance doesn’t mean you like it.

It doesn’t mean you’re giving up or giving in or settling for a life of misery.

It means you’re acknowledging what’s true right now, in this moment, without layering shame or story on top of it.

She learned this the hard way: The fastest way through a feeling is to stop trying to go around it.

What changed

She didn’t become less emotional.

But she did become less afraid of her emotions.

She stopped treating every uncomfortable feeling like an emergency. She stopped reflexively reaching for the numbing agents, the scroll, the snack, the drink, the distraction.

She started trusting that she could handle what she felt.

And here’s the irony: Once she stopped trying to fix her feelings, they started to shift on their own.

Not because she found the right technique or said the right affirmation, but because she finally gave them permission to move.

For you, right now

If you’re in the middle of a transition—if you’re feeling everything and nothing all at once—this is your reminder:

You don’t have to fix yourself. You’re not broken.

You’re just finally feeling what you’ve been holding at arm’s length for too long.

The feelings won’t kill you. The resistance might exhaust you, but the feelings themselves? They’re just weather systems passing through.

Start small.

Next time a difficult emotion shows up, don’t immediately reach for the fix. Don’t immediately reach for the phone or the snack or the story about why you shouldn’t feel this way.

Just pause.

Notice it. Name it. Breathe with it.

Give yourself 10 minutes to not have an answer.

You might be surprised by what happens when you stop fighting and start listening.

The life you’re building on the other side of this transition will require you to trust yourself.

And you can’t trust yourself if you’re constantly abandoning yourself the moment things get uncomfortable.

What’s your go-to move when uncomfortable feelings show up? The scroll? The snack? The cleaning spree? Drop a comment below. We’ve all been there.