Feeling Your Feelings is the fastest way to heal, but it’s not easy. We live in a society that teaches us to always look outwards, towards some higher power.  But what if we could turn that energy towards ourselves and trust the intelligence of the body, what would happen then?

Let’s Explore the Cycle Of Unexplored Feelings.

One of the most difficult blocks one may come across on their healing journey is remembering how to FEEL what’s happening within the body.

We have all been conditioned, on some level to override the physical sensations guiding us through an experience, instead, we get invested in the story and the memories it evokes.

This then reinforces and strengthens the feelings we were avoiding feeling, and the loop continues. Eventually creating an addiction to the rush of unpleasant emotions.

So How Do You Start Feeling?

When uncomfortable thoughts and feelings arise, the easiest way to work through the unpleasant sensations is to come back to the “felt sense” which is the language of the body.

Almost all of the people that come to work with me have no idea how to feel their feelings, instead, they talk to me about what they are thinking as their body starts to “talk to them via sensation” This is an automatic response by the traumatized mind to avoid feeling and protect us from overwhelm.

To Come back into the body and release unpleasant thoughts and emotions we need to allow ourselves to come back into the body and listen to the language of sensations which is the felt sense.

Focus on your breath – Feel the breath entering and leaving the nostrils, feel its temperature, and notice if one nostril is doing more work than the other.

Deepen your connection to your body – By bringing your awareness to your spine and all the vertebrae from the base of your skull to the coccyx. Then start to scan from the spine, forward, and around into the rib cage, feel them move as you breathe. 

Notice all of your body – Feel for any tension or areas of the body that feel different. Slowly work through your whole body and then once you find an area of discomfort or tension. Pause and explore! 

When you focus on these three things you can then invite a deeper sense of presence and explore what is happening within.

I have created a useful chart that will guide you into somatic exploration, using your senses will really help you begin to witness how you feel inside by observing your spatial awareness, internal state, intensity sensations, muscular sensations, constriction, expansion, temperature, body and skin sensations.

The best way to use is in the moment when you feel uncomfortable sensations rising in the body, for example, anxiety to you will be completely different from someone else. You may feel pressure in the throat, fluttering in the chest which also causes a prickly feeling and heat rising from the chest to the throat. The more you begin to observe sensations rather than thoughts you begin to take control of your breath and your emotions.

If you get stuck in your feelings you can do any of the following to help regulate yourself.

Connect to a safe space within your body, placing your hands over that area, breathing into it, breathe color into it. How does it feel?

Connect to something peaceful within the space you are in, for example, a plant, a nice tree out of the window, a picture, an ornament, or crystal.

Go for a walk

Stretch your body

Shake your body for a good 15 minutes

Dance

Hum loudly

Have a cold shower or a warm bath

Journal it out

Self Massage