How to “Feel Your Feelings”

Let’s face it – for anyone, life has many unpleasant and painful emotional experiences. For most, the instinct in the face of uncomfortable emotions is to make them stop, avoid them at all costs. This may work to relieve distress in the moment, but unfelt and unacknowledged emotions stay stuck and fester. They won’t leave you alone until they are truly felt. As the refrain goes, the only way out is through. No matter how unpleasant, we have to feel our feelings.

But what does it actually look like to “feel your feelings?” How do you do it? Before breaking down the steps, it’s important to note that feeling through a feeling effectively requires a balance of feeling while staying grounded. If you are too overwhelmed by the feeling, it will be hard to stay with it and process it. Whenever you’re working with hard feelings, find ways to self soothe and stay grounded so that you can regulate your overwhelm.

Here are a few easy ways to ground and regulate your nervous system as you work with the feeling:

• Feel your feet on the ground

• Take some deep breaths, focusing on a slow and steady exhale

• Pet a furry friend

• Bring your hands to the part of your body where you are feeling the most distress

• Look around the room, noticing any clues in your environment that tell you you’re safe

Use these grounding skills throughout the process, taking breaks whenever needed to stay regulated as you dive in. 

Step 1: Accept the feeling

The essential first step is acceptance that the feeling is there. You don’t even have to know what the emotion is yet or what it’s about. All you have to do is acknowledge that you’re experiencing something. Maybe you can tell because of discomfort in your body, racing distressing thoughts, or behaviors that feel concerning. Whatever your clue is that you’re having a feeling, pause and say to yourself, “okay, I’m having a feeling”. No matter how inconvenient or unpleasant, this radical acceptance of what is, without judgment, will open the door to moving through the feeling effectively.

Step 2: Get curious

Once you accept that the feeling is happening whether you like it or not, you start to explore it. To stay with it curiously, try tuning in with the sensations in your body and asking yourself some questions about the sensation: 

• If the feeling was a color, what color would it be? What about if it had a texture? A shape? A temperature?

• What feeling(s) are you having? Try to label the emotion– is it sadness, anger, shame, fear? A combination?

• Does the feeling have any messages for you? These messages could be about the present, the past or both. What does the feeling need? If you’re angry, do you need to set a boundary? If you’re sad, do you need to seek comfort from a loved one? If you’re afraid, is there something you could change about your environment to feel safer? Is this an old, familiar feeling? What from the past needs healing? Let the feeling know that you hear it. Thank it for the wisdom it shared.

Step 3: Self soothe and shift attention

While it’s important to be with the feeling, that doesn’t mean you have to sit and stew in it! Once you’ve acknowledged it and explored it, it’s likely that its intensity will simply pass on its own. If it doesn’t, return to your grounding and self soothing skills to shift your attention out of the feeling and back into your present environment. At this point, it’s okay to engage intentionally in distracting activities to help move away from the feeling and shift your attention off of it.

Good work, you’ve resisted the urge to avoid the feeling! Of course, there are times where it’s simply not feasible to take the time to check in with yourself and be with a feeling. In this case, you can do an abridged version of the same process, leaning more heavily on grounding and shifting attention off of the feeling. Regardless of where you are, never skip step 1: acceptance. When there’s no time or space to get into the feeling, simply note that it’s happening and make a point to come back to it later and explore when there is time.

Your feelings offer invaluable insight into your past and present experiences and deepest desires. Not to mention, when we shut down our ability to feel painful feelings we also stifle our experience of positive emotions as well! Let the full spectrum of emotions move through you. 

The Guest House

Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

Still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.