The Part Law School Didn't Teach You
…Or maybe more accurately: The part it taught us to forget.
In my last post, I wrote about how trauma gets trapped in the body and the urgent need to metabolize it. But here’s the thing:
One of the most important parts of metabolizing trauma is something many of us were never taught—how to actually feel our feelings.
It sounds simple. Obvious, even. But for many of us in the legal profession—and in other trauma-exposed fields—it’s anything but.
Law School Didn't Teach Us to Feel. It Taught Us Not To.
There’s a powerful article in the Roger Williams University Law Review called Paradoxical Pedagogy: Teaching Trauma-Informed Principles Within a System Built on Emotional Detachment by Sarah McConnell and Leah Lunetta. One quote in particular has stayed with me:
“[T]he current push for trauma-informed legal education often rests on a faulty assumption that law students and professors still possess the emotional competencies required for trauma-informed practice, but this assumption ignores the transformative—and often damaging—effect of traditional legal education, particularly in the first year. The traditional first-year curriculum is not neutral; it systematically trains students to distance themselves from emotion and human content—indeed, to detach.”
And it doesn’t end with law school. Detachment is reinforced throughout the legal profession. We’re taught to suppress emotion in the name of professionalism, objectivity, and control.
By the time we graduate, many of us have learned to compartmentalize—about our clients, our cases, and ourselves. We’ve become efficient machines. But sometimes, we’ve left our humanity at the door.
This Isn’t Just About Lawyers
The truth is, most of us weren’t taught how to feel. Many of us were raised with the unspoken message that big feelings were too much. That anger was dangerous. That sadness was weakness. That fear was something to ignore or power through.
There’s more awareness now about the importance of letting kids feel big feelings. But most of us didn’t grow up with that. And if you didn’t, chances are you’re still trying to figure it out.
I know I am.
For the past seven years, my personal work has centered around one deceptively simple goal:
To allow myself to feel what I feel.
It’s been the most important and most challenging work of my life.
What Happens When We Don’t Feel?
Let me say this plainly: If you work with trauma survivors—if you bear witness to suffering—it should affect you.
If it doesn’t, that’s a red flag. You’re not a robot. And you’re not supposed to be.
But here’s the catch: Feeling something is one thing. Knowing how to process and release those feelings is another. When we don’t know how—or don’t allow ourselves to—the emotions get trapped inside us. And over time, they take a toll. Mentally. Physically. Spiritually.
A Common Trap
I recently spoke with a brilliant attorney who works on trauma-heavy criminal appellate cases. The kind of cases where people have been locked up for decades, often after profound miscarriages of justice.
I asked him: How do you process the emotional weight of your work?
He said, “I get so much meaning from my work that I just work harder for my clients.”
I’ve heard versions of this answer many times. And while it’s deeply admirable, it’s also deeply dangerous.
Working harder isn’t an emotional release valve. It’s just turning up the pressure. Eventually, something’s going to blow.
So… What Does It Mean to Feel?
That’s the million-dollar question. I don’t have a tidy answer. But I can share what I’ve learned so far.
Step 1: Permission
Before anything else, give yourself permission to feel. No judgment. No fixing. Just allow.
Step 2: Space
You can’t feel your feelings if you never stop moving. Constant productivity is emotional anesthesia. To feel, you need space.
Step 3: Access
Sometimes, the emotions are buried so deep they don’t come up on their own. You have to coax them out.
Here are a few ways to open the valve:
Music that matches your mood (or helps you access one)
Movies or books that make you feel something
Journaling—not about what happened, but about how it felt
Talking to someone safe, not to trauma-dump, but to share what’s inside
Being witnessed by someone who won’t try to fix it
Step 4: Expression
Once you do feel, you need a way to let it out. These practices help me and I hope they help you too:
Therapy – A safe space to process emotions.
Breath work – A somatic tool for reconnecting with your body and releasing what’s stored.
Meditation – Or just stillness.
Movement – Walking, stretching, dancing, yoga.
Crying – A completely valid and necessary physiological release.
Creative expression – Art, music, writing, anything that makes room for what’s inside to come out.
Other practices that can help reconnect you with your emotions:
Somatic experiencing
EMDR
Trauma-informed yoga
Guided imagery or visualization
Sound healing
Time in nature, especially in silence
Step 5: Repeat
This isn’t a one-time fix. It’s a lifelong practice. A sacred, messy, courageous one.
You’re Not Broken—You Were Trained This Way
If you’ve been feeling numb, emotionally overwhelmed, or disconnected from yourself, it doesn’t mean you’re unfit for the work you do. It just means you were trained—by law school, by society, by early life—to disconnect.
But you can unlearn that training. And you’re not alone.
The first step is noticing. The next step is choosing to feel.
And every time you do, you come home to yourself a little more.
Seven years later, I’ve come a long way—but I’m still a work in progress. I know I’ll continue to learn, grow, and heal. And as I do, I’ll keep connecting more deeply with my emotions.
One thing I’ve learned along the way is that feeling emotions doesn’t just mean sitting with the hard ones like sadness, anger, and fear.
It also opens us up to the full range of human experience: joy, wonder, love.
When we bottle up our feelings, our bodies don’t get to pick and choose. We don’t just suppress the painful ones, we shut down everything.
And as hard, messy, and complicated as it is to feel the full rainbow of emotions,
it’s also powerful and liberating.
P.S.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. What has your journey of feeling—or not feeling—looked like? What helps you reconnect to yourself? Leave a comment, or send me a message.
If you’re working with trauma survivors—whether as a lawyer, therapist, advocate, educator or caregiver—you deserve space to feel. You need space to feel.
And if nobody ever gave you that permission, let me offer it now:
You’re allowed to feel it all. Not just for your clients, but for yourself.
