How Well Do You Feel Your Feelings? (Mindfulness Therapy in Philadelphia)
Often people struggle to experience, identify, understand, or express what they’re feeling. Western society does not often encourage emotional expression. We hear messages from parents or peers to “suck it up,” “stay strong,” “don’t cry,” or “look on the bright side.” While possibly well intentioned, these words convey a subtle or direct message that it’s not ok to have or express feelings. Sometimes we learn to push our feelings down as a result.
Severe inability to experience, identify, understand, or express emotions is referred to as Alexithymia. Alexithymia could be due to a physical issue like after one experiences a traumatic brain injury, or a processing issue sometimes experienced by those on the Autism Spectrum, or from learned patterns of dissociation from living with complex PTSD. Not everyone with Alexithymia has these conditions, and not everyone with these conditions has Alexithymia.
If you’re wanting to learn how to identify and understand your feelings, one helpful tool is using a feelings wheel (link). A feelings wheel has 6 major emotions in the center, with each emotion broken down into more specific feeling words that can give you more language for identifying and expressing your experience.
Another method for understanding emotions is by referencing this 2013 study called, "Bodily map of emotions," published in the Journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), where researchers asked over 700 participants to map the bodily sensations they experienced when viewing various emotional words, movies, stories, and facial expressions. They found that emotions are commonly experienced in similar ways across cultures. While this is a map of what many people feel, your experience of that particular emotion may be unique to you. You can see the results of their research here.
Understanding feelings is important, but just because you can explain them doesn’t mean you can fully feel your feelings.
Why Feel Your Feelings? The Benefits… (Mindfulness Therapy in Philadelphia)
Why does it matter if you can feel your feelings? Emotions can offer us insight into what we desire or need and makes it possible for us to meet our own needs to express what we need so they might be met by others. They can motivate us to take action, pursue goals, or make important changes in our lives. For example, a feeling like joy or contentment might highlight the avenues we want to pursue, while frustrations might shed light on what we need to change.
Emotions can also be a warning sign, alerting us to potential dangers or issues that deserve our attention. Anger is sometimes a healthy response to a boundary violation, while fear is sometimes reasonable and important for assessing healthy risk.
Alternatively, emotions can give us insight into the limiting thought patterns, narratives, and beliefs that fuel difficult feelings. For example, sometimes fear or frustration is a result of an unrealistic expectation of what might happen or what someone else should do. Once you are aware of the thoughts causing you to feel a certain way, you can then examine them more deeply to see what needs reframing.
Emotions can also help us heal from painful experiences as feeling the feeling is part of the process of recovering and accepting what is. People who have lost a loved one, for example, know that suppressing their grief doesn’t make it go away. Rather, when grief is sat with, witnessed, and processed can it start to heal. Similarly, anger that isn’t felt and released can build up, making us constantly on edge or ready to explode at the drop of a dime.
Understanding feelings can help us identify what we need to feel safe and cared for. Expressing feelings to caring people provides an opportunity to feel less alone or to feel more supported when others take action and help to meet our needs.
The better we are at feeling and understanding our own emotions, the more empathetic we can be towards others, which can help us build deeper, stronger relationships.
The Risks If You Don’t Feel Your Feelings (Mindfulness Therapy in Philadelphia)
Avoidance is an understandable reaction to the potential of experiencing something that feels overwhelming. Maybe we anticipate that feeling the thing would totally dysregulate us to the point of dysfunction. Or we have a hunch that allowing ourselves to tap into the truth of our feelings might disrupt the comfortable existence we’ve created and we fear the effort it will take to make those changes that may ultimately lead to a happier life, and charting into the unknown feels risky.
It’s also not common to learn how to express feelings in healthy ways when we are young. We might anticipate that sharing how we feel will result in more unease or even harm, especially if we’ve had experiences in life where our needs were not met or our feelings were met with frustration, ambivalence, anger, or violence. We learn to protect ourselves and sometimes determine that it’s safest not to have needs or feelings at all. We bury them to the point of not being able to recognize them accurately or in time when they do bubble up eventually. And they do also find a way to come to the surface.
Sometimes if healthy emotional expression wasn’t modeled to us we never learn the appropriate ways to handle our feelings. We may find that expressing anger is destructive or hurtful to others, or that expressing frustrations, fear or anxiety pushes others away or causes more arguments when we really just want to be close or have our needs understood. We might then avoid expressing these feelings to avoid the disruption it causes in our lives.
If you’ve suppressed your feelings for a long time, you may find that you feel disconnected from yourself, struggle to understand or make sense of your experience, or just don’t know what you want. Just as feelings can provide us with insight, warning signs, motivation, and healing, not allowing ourselves to feel them can block these things from occurring. If we’re not in touch with our feelings, we might stay in an unhealthy relationship, friend group, or job too long. We might never give up unhealthy behaviors that limit our health and happiness. We might stay stuck in the process of grief or spiral into deeper depression.
How To Feel Your Feelings (Mindfulness Therapy in Philadelphia)
So how do you feel your feelings? This is a skill that most people can learn and proficiency comes with practice. Your feelings often show up as patterns of sensation in the body. So the first step is tuning in. The meditation below offers an analogy for viewing feelings as visitors in your house. This playful imagery can help externalize your feelings, making them easier to be with. Once you get more comfortable allowing feelings to exist instead of resisting, you can tune in and explore them more easily. But remember, undoing lifelong patterns of suppressing emotions takes time. Be patient with yourself. Sometimes it’s not easy to determine the message that each emotional visitor has for you.
You can practice by listening to mindfulness meditations on observing feelings or self compassion, where someone can guide you through the process of tuning in and letting go. Tara Brach has some great self compassion meditations. You can also try journaling where you simply write down anything on your mind as it comes, trying not to edit yourself as you go (see journal prompt below!). Some people like using a feelings wheel chart to help put a name to their experience. Additionally, a therapist can help you explore your feelings in more depth and teach you tools to be more present. Reflective practices are useful for teasing out what feelings are fueled by our heads, our hearts or our gut instinct, and then once we have a clearer idea of what each part of us wants and needs, we can make a more informed decision on how to move forward in life.
Another important thing to know is that sometimes feelings can be overwhelming or uncomfortable to experience and can become too dysregulating. A little discomfort is par for the course, but there is a limit. If you find that allowing the feeling pushes you out of your “window of tolerance,” you will want to practice grounding or relaxation strategies to get back inside the window. Signs you’re outside of your window of tolerance include signs of anxiety and panic (racing heart, shallow breathing, dizziness, heart palpitations, confusion) or signs of depression and dissociation (lethargy and fatigue, numbness, brain fog, pain, suicidal thoughts). Referring to the Emotions As Visitors in Your House Analogy below, when we hit these marks, imagine hanging up a sign on the front door of your house that says, “Come back later” do not disturb” or “out to lunch.” The visitors will know that you need a break, but they will be waiting to return when possible. So your next move is to do some serious self care! Either distract yourself temporarily while you get back to solid ground with healthy distractions like going for a walk, watching a favorite TV show, listening to music, or even counting or reciting a prayer or poem to get your mind off of the feeling. Or try grounding yourself by focusing on your five senses (what can you see, smell, hear, taste, or touch right here right now, feel your feet on the floor, look around your room and orient yourself to the moment. Or you can use your senses to soothe yourself, like breathing slowly and deeply, taking a warm or cold shower, stroking a pet, wrapping yourself in a weighted blanket, talking to someone who makes you feel good, or by relaxing your muscles from head to toe. The intensity of the feeling will pass in time.
Each time you effectively sit with your feelings and regulate into your window of tolerance as needed, you strengthen your ability to feel your feelings with confidence. Allowing the feelings as you can, even in small doses, is an important step in managing emotions, since what we resist persists.
Emotions as Visitors in Your House Analogy: Introduction (Mindfulness Therapy in Philadelphia)
Feelings can be complex and sometimes hard to understand, but using simple stories or analogies can make them much clearer. In this exercise we will think of feelings as if they're visitors coming to your house. This idea isn't new; many mindfulness experts have talked about it because it's easy for people of all ages to grasp. Whether you're a kid learning about feelings for the first time or an adult trying to manage emotions better, this analogy can help. Analogies can also make concepts feel more relatable and understandable. When we are able to envision emotions as “house visitors”, we can change the way we deal with them, making us more mindful and compassionate.
Using analogy and metaphor can help us visualize emotions as external entities, which can aid in emotional regulation and understanding. Often we identify with our emotions: “I’m anxious or depressed.” But making the small shift to say “I am noticing feelings or thoughts that trigger anxiety or depressed mood in me,” creates some distance between you and the feeling. This practice, called diffusion, suggests that the thoughts and feelings are not permanent and instead come and go through your awareness. This makes them less threatening or overwhelming and allows you more space to Choose how you react to the thoughts or feelings. Visualizing emotions as visitors offers that same space for allowing and even accepting emotions. The house they’re visiting is our own body, as feelings are truly just patterns of sensation experienced in the body.
The practice of noticing thoughts and emotions without over identifying with them also encourages us to not judge them. We consider that the feelings, even if coming from thoughts we deem to be irrational, are valid from a certain perspective and warrant attention and care. There is something going on beneath the surface that needs tending to. When feelings become less scary to be with it allows us to look more clearly and deeply at the messages they carry.
Emotions as Visitors in Your House Analogy: Meditation (Mindfulness Therapy in Philadelphia)
Feelings are like visitors in your house. They are often just passing through, even if only for a minute or two. They all just want to be welcomed, to be seen and heard and understood. Even if they look scary they come with a message, a lesson, maybe even a gift, sometimes from the past.
Your body is the house where emotions come to visit. Turn your focus inward to allow yourself to feel those sensations more deeply. Sometimes it can be easier to access feelings with your eyes closed, so if you’d like to listen to this meditation (link coming soon!). But first, just start by reading through the content below to get an idea of what to do, following the instructions as best as you can. As you focus inward, slightly lengthen your spine, let your shoulders drop, and maybe allow your jaw muscles to soften. Take a few slow deep slow breaths in and out. Imagine an elevator descending slowly from your head into your body. Allow yourself to take a moment here to settle into the body if it feels safe to be there. Now notice, with curiosity, the sensations in your body. Check your head, face, neck, shoulders, arms, back, chest, stomach, pelvis, legs and even hands and feet. Emotions may appear as a localized or as an overall sense of energy, buzzing, spinning, stillness, fullness, emptiness, heaviness, lightness, uneasiness, softness, tension, heat or cold. Some even describe emotions with a color, size or shape. Soften the body as a way to welcome the visitor and say “hello anger/sadness/joy/fear/surprise/uncertainty etc., you are welcome here.” Give that emotion a hug as you place hands on the part of the body you feel him most. Notice the warmth of your hands, grounding and nurturing you. Let the visitor know, “I see you, I welcome you, what message do you have for me?” Listen.
Listen without judgment because sometimes the emotion doesn’t make sense at first and to understand you must let go of judgments like “you don’t belong, you don’t make sense, you aren’t supposed to be here.” Instead, try saying, even if it feels strange, “I hear you. I understand you. What I understand is….”
If at first you notice the resistance to the feeling, the tightness, perhaps, of closing the door to your house, just welcome them in and be with him for a moment. Resistance is an emotion too. What do you understand about the resistance? Welcome them without judgment too.
As you practice welcoming and understanding, your response can be simple and short or long and deep. What matters is you welcomed the emotion and made them feel safe. That makes the tough feeling soften sometimes.
If they aren’t ready to leave yet, just let them hang around a little longer. Perhaps offer him a drink, a walk, a stretch, a shower, a nap, a cry, a book, a song, or another friend to talk to. They will let you know when they’re ready to leave. If you have important things to do and can’t do it with them there, offer them to stay in one room for a little while while you get things done. Compartmentalization can be a very useful tool. But you must remember to let them come out again as soon as you can. If you lock them away and forget, they will grow stronger in time and find secret ways to come out of the room.
Sometimes feelings come along with other friends. Anger is often accompanied by sadness tagging along behind them, but if you don’t welcome anger you might not get to meet sadness. I know, I know, who wants to meet sadness? But if you don’t meet the sadness, Anger may get more angry, as if you were saying, “Sadness, you aren’t allowed to be here because you’re too painful,” And really, Sadness needs the biggest hug of all.
Once the feelings feel cared for they often leave. For a short time or a long time. But not to worry because these visitors are part of life, they live in your neighborhood! and you have the power to help them and love them so they don’t bother you too badly.
Sometimes in that visit they bring you a gift. When you take the time to understand the feeling you come to understand yourself. Self awareness is a gift, for it gives you the opportunity to know and express yourself more truly, or to understand what, why and how you may need to heal. The feelings that visit often have a belief about the world that may or may not be true, but it’s important to understand it. Perhaps the feeling believes it was wronged and wants you to take action. Perhaps that feeling believes it is not good enough or that it is unworthy. These beliefs can only be explored and challenged (if needed) when we give the feeling space to be seen and heard, when it feels soothed and loved enough to take a slow deep breath and let go.
Journal Prompt to Feel Your Feelings (Mindfulness Therapy in Philadelphia):
Here is a journal prompt associated with the Emotions as Visitors in Your House Analogy
Feeling name:
Where and how I feel it (where in body, type of feeling, color, shape, size, movement, temperature, buzzing or still, big or small):
Severity when it comes in the door:
Belief it has:
Way I nurtured it (self care, expressing it, taking action):
Severity after I nurtured it:
Contact Us
If you want more support in the process of feeling your feelings, a professional therapist can help. We have physical offices in Philadelphia, PA, Mechanicsville VA, Ocean City, NJ and Santa Fe NM and also work remotely with clients living in GA and FL. To schedule a therapy appointment at The Center For Growth, call 215 922 5683 x100 or book online.
