Feeling Your Feelings
Therapists say this and encourage this all the time, but what does it mean and why is it important for your mental health?
Why feeling your feelings matters:
When you slow down and nonjudgmentally create space for your emotions, you naturally become more aware of your feelings and allow them to process. This gives you an opportunity to learn and grow. Becoming more aware of your emotions creates more flexible and thoughtful reactions. This means you can live in a way that aligns more with your values. You can alter a defensive or snap response to a more grounded, compassionate and open one. Feeling your feelings can also allow difficult emotions to pass much more smoothly than when they are denied, judged or avoided.
Emotion basics:
Emotions have been with us since the beginning of time and have helped serve a role of survival throughout history. Your emotions are like a guide, a compass or a map leading you through life. Emotions either direct you towards something or steer you away. At a primal level, these emotions can activate a fight, flight, freeze or fawn response which literally acts to save your life. But when there is not an actual threat, it can be helpful to learn how to identify the emotions and sit with them.
Feelings are science. Emotions trigger an internal activation where specific neurotransmitters, hormones and chemical reactions unfold. Your body may tense up, you might stop breathing and your heart rate might increase. Feelings last around 90 seconds when they are allowed and accepted to be in your presence. If you judge them, ignore or avoid them, they get stuck and can last much longer leading to unneeded discomfort.
The difference between thoughts, feelings and behaviors:
Thoughts: Thoughts are the constant stories, assumptions and words that travel through your brain all day long. Most of the time, they are happening at a subconscious level. They help you make associations about the world around you.
Feelings: Feelings show up in your body. They are connected to your entire body’s working. They are in relationship with your body’s hormones and chemical reactions. Some feeling words are sadness, guilt, joy, hopeless, hopeful, confused, etc. (Check out this feeling wheel)
Behaviors: Behaviors are the actions you take as a result of your thoughts and feelings. For example if you have a thought that something is gross on your plate, you might feel disgust and as a result avoid that food and eat the other options. The avoidance and eating other foods is the behavior. Behaviors are your interactions with others and the external choices you make in the world.
How to feel your feelings:
You might have learned growing up that emotions are bad or that there are only a couple of acceptable ones. You might have been told not to cry, that you were being too sensitive, were overreacting or told to go to your room to cry. These are unhelpful messages and reinforce the idea that feelings are bad, need to be “fixed” or dealt with in isolation. When emotions are judged, dismissed and denied, they are unable to process and get lodged in your body. Without feeling your feelings, you act on impulse and behaviors can feel out of control.
Identify the physical sensations in your body:
Increase your awareness of what sensations you notice. Where do you feel tension, tightness, discomfort, pain, or other sensations? These could potentially be connected to your emotions. Radically accept the physical sensations and avoid judging or trying to figure out why the sensations are present. Just notice and be with them.
Gain language around feeling words: Download an emotion wheel and save it somewhere in your phone so you can pull it out frequently and identify what emotions are present. Do this and number one daily and it will become more automatic over time.
Practice non judgment: Instead of judging the emotions, radically accept they are a part of the human experience and invite them into your awareness.
Respond with compassion: Imagine turning towards your younger self or your emotions themselves and embrace them with a hug or wrap them in a blanket. Nurture them with love and kindness.
Validate your experience: Unlearn the unhelpful messages you received about emotions by saying something like, “It’s hard to feel X. You are struggling and that’s okay.”
Engage your body: Find something soothing or releasing for your body. This is different for everyone but could be crying, talking, singing, humming, exercise or taking a bath. Your body is where the emotions are stored, so remember to allow your body to be a part of the feeling work as well.
The more you practice the above, the easier and more efficient the process becomes. Feeling your feelings will help you become more in tune with your inner guide and make decisions that align with your values.
