The Number One Most Common Advice I Give as a Therapist
By Ilene Solomon Gold, LCSW, ACS, RYT
If there is one piece of wisdom I return to again and again in my work as a therapist, in individual sessions, in group therapy, in newsletters, it is this: your feelings are not your enemy.
Most of us were never taught that. We learned to push difficult emotions away, to manage them, fix them, or at least keep them hidden. But what if, instead of trying to get rid of your sadness or your anxiety or your shame, you simply let it in?
That’s where Rumi comes in. Centuries before modern psychology had words for emotional regulation or acceptance-based therapy, this 13th-century Persian poet wrote something that stops my clients in their tracks every time I share it. I have read this poem in individual sessions, in group work, and quoted it in newsletters more times than I can count. And I still find something new in it each time.
It opens like this:
The Guest House by Rumi
“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.” (Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks). You can read the full poem at the Scottish Poetry Library.
What Rumi Knew That We Are Still Learning
The Guest House isn’t about toxic positivity. Rumi isn’t telling us that everything is fine, or that our pain doesn’t matter. He is saying something far more radical: that every feeling, even the dark and difficult ones, deserves a welcome.
This maps directly onto one of the most powerful concepts in contemporary therapy. When we resist our emotions, pushing them away, numbing them, or avoiding anything that might trigger them, they don’t actually go away. They go underground and tend to resurface louder, usually at the worst possible moments.
But when we can turn toward what we are feeling, even when it is uncomfortable, something shifts. The emotion can move through us, which is what it was always trying to do.
The Both/And of Emotional Life
One of the things I love most about this poem is how it holds what I call the "both/and" of emotional life. You can feel the sadness AND understand that it may be making room for something else. You can grieve what was lost AND trust that something new might follow. You can feel the fear AND still move toward what matters to you.
This isn’t about silver linings or forced optimism. It is about making space for the full complexity of being human. Feelings are information, and when we make room for them instead of fighting them, we often find they have something important to tell us.
Making Friends with Your Feelings
When clients resist their emotions, I often hear things like: "I shouldn’t feel this way," or "I just need to get over it," or "I don’t know why I’m still so upset about this." That inner voice, the one that judges our feelings, is often the very thing that keeps us stuck.
What Rumi invites us to do, and what therapy invites us to do, is something different. Welcome and entertain them all. Meet them at the door laughing. Not because the feelings are easy or comfortable, but because fighting them is exhausting and usually makes things worse.
Imagine treating your sadness the way you would treat an unexpected houseguest. You don’t have to love having them there. You don’t have to pretend everything is fine. But you can offer them a seat, hear what they came to say, and trust that they won’t live with you forever.
Ready to Stop Fighting Your Inner World?
We return to The Guest House again and again in our work at Discover Peace Within, in individual therapy, in group sessions, and in the conversations we have with clients about what it means to actually feel your feelings rather than manage them away. Acceptance, sitting with difficult emotions, and "both/and" thinking are at the heart of how we approach healing here.
If you’re in Denver and ready to explore what it might look like to stop fighting your inner world and start working with it, we would love to connect with you. Reach out here to schedule a free consultation.