One of the steps of the ROAR process calls for you to feel your feelings. But many people don’t know what’s involved in that. How exactly does it differ from complaining or resentment?
Resentment
Resentment occurs when you (or those around you) refuse to acknowledge the validity of your feelings. Imagine that you were working for a promotion, and just received notice from your boss that the promotion was going to someone else. You might feel that it would not be safe to express your true feelings. For example, the newly promoted person might have power to determine the success of your future career. If that was the case, you might invalidate your feelings. Even though you felt angry, or betrayed, or some other strong emotion, you would “put on a happy face”. You would smile and congratulate your coworker for the promotion you’d wanted. Those feelings would not go away, however. They would linger and fester, breeding resentment toward your promoted coworker.
Complaining
Unlike resentment, where emotions are not safe to feel, complaining occurs when emotions are too safe. Something about that emotion feeds you and meets your needs, so you artificially extend the length of time you experience it. Let’s use the same example. Your coworker is promoted instead of you. After work, you get together with friends and begin complaining. Your manager doesn’t recognize the quality of your work. The promotion system is corrupt. Everyone knows the coworker spends more time playing office politics than working.
Your friends begin to sympathize, agreeing with you, and even building upon your complaints with complaints of their own. Being passed over for promotion could have been a sign that you were at risk. You might have been in danger. But the support of your friends in your complaints indicates that you are a fully accepted member of a group. You feel safe. So long as you are willing to trade the perceived safety of complaining about a common enemy for the more emotionally risky path of doing something, you will not progress toward your goals.
Feel Your Feelings
To feel your feelings, you need to both admit their validity (unlike resentment) and be willing to let them go (unlike complaining). Using the same example, you can admit, even if only to yourself, that you feel betrayed by your boss. Was the promotion held out as an incentive to get you to work harder, with no intention of promoting you? What qualities does your coworker have that you do not? You allow yourself to really feel the betrayal, the distrust, and the wounded pride. Then, having felt them, you let them go. They may be valid feelings, but your goal is not served by staying in them longer than necessary to acknowledge them.
