[lostcolony]

I don't think the parent meant ignore in the same sense you're taking it.

You still engaged with what you felt. You named what you were feeling, and decided to act on it. In the past, you acted in accord with it; in the instance you cite, you acted in defiance of it, and then on further after-the-fact examination identified what was going on inside of you and determined that acting in defiance of it served you better.

I believe the parent was not using 'ignore' in the sense of "don't act in defiance to how your emotions would incline you to behave", but in the sense of, literally, to pay no attention to it. If you were not paying attention to how you felt, you would still have avoided; your emotions ensured that was the 'easy' and 'natural' choice. It was only by recognizing the feeling, and how your past responses to it didn't serve you, that you were able to decide to act differently.