sitting with your feelings
sitting with your feelings
how to find inner resonance
“Feel your feelings” is good advice that’s a little light on the practicalities. How do you actually feel your feelings? How do you know you’re doing it “right”? Where do you begin?
In my experience, the best way to feel your feelings is to acknowledge and make space for them. This can be done without “going into” the feeling and without ruminating on the associated thoughts. It’s a process that starts and ends in the body, and I’ve found it to be an incredibly effective tool. It’s also entirely something that is “felt”, somatically, rather than an analytical process (more on that later).
When I make space for my feelings, I’m less at their mercy. As someone who’s always had a lot of feelings, that’s a huge relief. Nowadays, I’m much less afraid of being pulled this way and that way by my emotions. I know how to meet them and process them, so that when they show up, it’s a welcome occasion.
A feeling is, in the broadest possible definition, something felt in the body or mind. It might be rooted in a simple emotion (“I feel sad”) or something more complex (“I feel conflicted about the state of the world”). It is persistent, unlike most thoughts, thought it might move or change. It is often uncomfortable. When I say feeling, know that I’m referring to a felt sensation that arises from the mind/body.
Sitting with your feelings can be hard to understand at first, so I wanted to write a short & clear guide about how I approach it. This won’t be for everyone, and there’s a few caveats and disclaimers along the way, but I invite you to try this process and see if it works for you. And please let me know any feedback or questions in the comments.
emotions as signals
Let’s begin with why “feel our feelings” matters: it’s because emotions are signals. When we ignore a low intensity emotion, it dissipates within a few moments. But when an emotion is high-intensity and chronic, happening time after time for year after year, the body can’t just get rid of it. It needs to do something with that signal.
High emotional intensity says to the body, “Do something, please”. With some emotions, it’s more like “DO SOMETHING NOW!!!”. And the body listens. It always responds to the signal. The response might not be conscious, it might not be visible, but it happens.
If the signal says “RUN AWAY” but your conscious mind refuses to do so, then the body might respond by, say, clenching the muscles around your hips. Years and years of that signal-response could lead to tight, painful hips. I know that one from experience.
Or maybe you have the desire to speak up about something that’s troubling you, and you’re getting ready to express the difficult emotion… but your conscious mind steps in and says, no, we can’t share that. So the tension stays in your throat, or moves to your jaw, or shows up as mumbling or stuttering or headaches. With enough occurrences, these physical patterns grow stronger and stronger.
The point is is that when we ignore emotional signals (when we repress our emotions), that energy goes somewhere. And we don’t always know where it went until it shows up again later. This is the body doing its best to process the signals that seem important.
If we want to avoid these unintended side effects, or release unwanted patterns of behaviour, we need to process our emotions. That means responding to the emotional signals in a conscious, intentional way.
But that’s easier said than done, and “feel your feelings” can mean many things, some of which are more helpful than others. This is a quick guide to the most effective way that I’ve found to do it.
avoiding overwhelm
A quick caveat: “feel your feelings” does not mean “become overwhelmed by them”.
(Please note that here and elsewhere I’m going to be talking in broad strokes and generalities. Sometimes being overwhelmed by our emotions is good and necessary, and other times it’s simply unavoidable. But if we’re interested in processing the underlying signal, it’s usually better to avoid being submerged by the feeling.)
“Becoming overwhelmed” usually means “spiralling". That’s when we’re in the emotion, in the fear/grief/anger, and our thoughts are reflecting that feeling and magnifying it. You feel sad, and then you start thinking about all the times people have let you down, and then how maybe you deserve it, maybe there’s something wrong with you… and now we’re not just listening to the signal, we’re boosting it.
This is the trap people often get caught up in when they start trying to feel their feelings. And it makes perfect sense: if these intense signals have been repressed for years, it’s common for them to erupt with a lot of force. In those cases, it’s not a sign you’re doing it “wrong”, per se, it’s just part of the process.
If you find when you try to feel your feelings, you’re constantly getting overwhelmed by them, in a way that feels depleting rather than cathartic, I suggest reaching out for support from a friend or a counsellor or a therapist, someone who can help shift you to being present with the emotion but not being lost in it.
So if processing our emotions involves feeling the feeling without spiralling into it, how do we maintain the balance?
observing sensations
Let’s start where we are.
Notice how you’re feeling right now. Scan your body and notice what emotions are present. Maybe some anxiety, or joy, or anger, or calm, or even sensations like hunger or thirst or fatigue. Maybe there’s tension or energy in a particular part of your body; maybe elsewhere there’s openness or ease.
Take a moment to pick a sensation and notice what it feels like. How big is it, what shape is it, is there a colour or a texture that comes to mind? If you close your eyes and really focus on it, does an image come to mind?
Next, notice how you are observing the sensation. You are not the sensation itself. You are not immersed in it. There’s a bit of separation, that allows you to notice its shape and texture and feel. Avoiding overwhelm is about maintaining that small space between us and the sensation.
If you continue just noticing the sensation, keeping it in your attention, you’ll probably observe that after awhile, something shifts. The sensation moves or gets bigger or gets smaller. The signal has been heard, in part, and now it begins to change. That’s a sign that you’ve started processing the signal.
The feeling might not disappear. It might even get more intense. But we’ve learned something key here: by engaging with a feeling, we can shift it. We can create change.
resonance
Next, I want you to try something I call resonating with that feeling. You can visualize this like tuning your whole body to the “note” that the sensation is playing. Or you can imagine the sensation spreading to take up your whole body, as you give it all the space in the world.
The idea here is the same: be with the sensation with your whole being. Allow it to take over your body, without letting it take over your thoughts. We are giving as much space as possible for the signal to be heard.
(At any time, if this feels like too much, like there’s a definite “NO” showing up for you, please back off.)
Keep checking into the space between you and it: there it is, here you are. It may be getting bigger, but you are bigger still, surrounding it, creating space for it. Or maybe it’s staying the same size, or shifting or changing, and you are staying with it. You can even visualize yourself sitting beside the emotion, and just being with it.
We’re not trying to analyze the feeling. We’re not trying to figure out what the signal means, or where it comes from. We’re simply receiving it. The moment we go into analysis mode, we lose contact with the feeling itself. The thinking mind is all too eager to provide an explanation that it thinks is correct, while ignoring the content of the signal itself. So we stay with the feeling.
Again, with time and practice, you’ll notice that this resonance allows the emotion to shift and change. You don’t need to “figure it out”. Most of the time, I find this kind of attention is enough to allow the feeling to pass. The signal has been heard and acknowledged. It’s achieved its purpose, and now it can fade away.
practice notes
All of this takes practice. It’s a delicate art. It often feels like a physical “move” one is doing, like a part of a dance routine, but it’s all inward. It’s a tricky piece of choreography.
Sometimes you’ll get lost. Sometimes the feeling will take over your thoughts. That’s okay. Sometimes you’ll want to explore it a deeper level. That’s sometimes necessary. What I’m describing here is just the first step. It’s a way to recognize the signal without being consumed by it. It gives it a place to go.
As you let the signal resonate in your body, you’ll probably notice that it eventually lapses. The signal feels it has been received. This won’t always happen (some signals are stubborn) but it often does. I’ve found that about 80% of the time, if I sit with a feeling for long enough, it evaporates.
The most important thing is this process gives you a way to do something with the feeling. Not about it, not trying to fix it or get rid of it. but do something with the signal that so desperately wants to be heard.
relaxing around the feeling
I want to reiterate that this isn’t a cure-all, this isn’t the solution to all life’s woes. this is only the first step, a way to receive the signals so they don’t go elsewhere in the body. It’s a way to learn more about how you’re feeling and what it wants from you.
With practice, you’ll find you can be more and more relaxed around your emotions, which makes it much less scary. You’re the one creating space for them, rather than the one being overtaken by them. It’s not “being in control” but more “holding the space.” We’re not “unleashing” the feeling, but creating a safe container for it.
You’re not in control of your feelings, but you’re able to work with them. There’s collaboration here, cooperation. There can be peace. The story can begin to shift. And it starts with allowing yourself to sit with what’s within you.
With love & appreciation,
Scott