What good are feelings?

So I am gradually getting what T is trying to help me do - experience the overwhelming feelings while I am with him in order for him to help me through it.

But I already know I survive those feelings despite it being hard at the time, so what is the point in focusing on them, it doesn't change the thought / memory that triggers them and maybe just contributes to dependency on T.

I have really lost the point of therapy at the moment and don't even think I like my T very much - that 1 hour a week is pretty useless in contributing to sorting my life out.

Is that all therapy is about?

Have you ever thought of maybe finding another T, SoupDragon? Maybe the connection isn't there with your current T, and that's why you have lost faith in the work you are doing.

I don't think feelings do any good at all. Unfortunately my attempts to become Spock have failed and I have them anyway. Perhaps they are like the spleen or gall bladder-useless but they can cause all sorts of havoc if they rupture - sadly feelings are not surgically removable.

Oh, I guess the life of a robot must have more appeal than I'm aware of. Can you enlighten me about that?

Not a robot - a Vulcan. Never a robot.

We have feelings for survival. If we didn't have feelings we wouldn't care to survive.

Here is my view on it - Feelings are normal for us humans. To stay healthy, we need to express feelings as they occur. Something bad happens, we need to be able to process what happened, express the feelings, then we can move on.

If something bad happens and you cannot process it or express the feelings, they get stored. If many things happen you have quite a storage. Not good. Stored feelings make you anxious and/or depressed.

The good news is that you can express feelings at a later date. Unload those feelings and you can feel better.

I know you know this, but feelings include not only the "bad" such as sorrow, pain, grief, anger, hopelessness, etc, but also joy, love, connection, humor, etc.

In my own experience, my ability to experience joy and connection and find humor in everyday life is directly proportional to my ability to feel and make sense of pain, anger, and the other less positive emotions.

The other thing that feelings are good for is the more I pay attention to them, the more mindful I am in my everyday life. The more mindful I am, the more present I am to experience not only the events of my life, but also the joy, love, connection, and humor that is attached to these events.

It's a pretty good trade-off, and it gets better all the time.

Anne

That all sounds logical, hopeful and reassuring. So why is it so hard to do?

So in order to be able to experience the good stuff ( I can't relate to joy, connection, humor) I have to experience the bad? Yes I would give that trade off a go - but is it me blocking my ability to feel? How do I unblock it?

That view sounded kinda like the get-rid-of-bad-feelings view to me. Pretty logical, as you said. Just dealing with feelings for a functional reason.

I like 3rd Times the Charm's enjoy-the-good-feelings view.

Re: Sannah's post:
I think someone else here suggested this, but maybe the T you've got now isn't the one to get you thru this step. Maybe he's taking you back to those feelings because that's what his speciality is. Whatever the reason, if you're ready to move on from there & he's not getting you beyond it, I'd say ask right out--why can't we move on?

If he's unwilling/unable, consider moving on to another T. Then maybe you won't find the stuff Sannah posted about "so hard to do." It's hard, but you're sounding as if you think it's unattainable--or maybe I'm reading you wrong.

It's not you consciously blocking it--you'd know that! There could be experiences that interfere with your ability to accept the good as something you deserve. Lots of stuff can get in the way. Thinking oneself unworthy is what I'm most familiar with. Something else to broach with your T--if you can get him to move on.

Roadrunner

Regarding consciously blocking... it is the unconscious blocking that is what is discovered through therapy. When we are near becoming aware of something unconscious, it is unsettling. But something to embrace and move toward, not run from. It goes right along with us if we run and we miss the opportunity of the moment.

Because you don't want to revisit and feel the pain?

This is probably related to your answer to the above question?

I have a real problem with therapists putting a premium on experiencing intense feelings during the therapy "hour."

Just because I don't experience these feelings when I am "in session" doesn't mean I'm not sorting them out! Often, maybe it's because it all doesn't hit me until I'm gone, home, with friends...LATER.

I feel like I'm doing therapy WRONG if I don't demonstrate somehow...that I'm feeling. This just really bugs me! It's been an issue with every T I have had!

Sorry to sound so het up about this, but could this be part of what SD is dealing with? Or am I hijacking this thread again...gah!

Seriously? It's never been an issue with any of the T's I've worked with. I think there's a difference between stone cold lack of feeling/inaccessible feelings and feeling something ranging from a little tickle to a torrent. No one has ever evaluated the intensity of my feelings. I don't think I've ever had a torrent of feeling in T, maybe approaching it at times. But in my experience, the intensity of my feelings is tied to my ability to articulate it, in the reverse. If I have some emotional space between myself and talking about "it", then my emotions are not as intense.

Actually, my current T has encouraged me in techniques, mostly mindfulness ones, that allow me to approach big, ugly, scary stuff with less intense emotions, because it allows me to talk more about it and my feelings. The emotion is still there, it's not cut off, but it's not so strong its dysfunctional.

But I know what you mean. Some folks here do talk about getting to some kind of "original" feeling that is tied to the trauma(s). Where the intensity might have been the same as it was at the time. Maybe that makes sense for a goal for some folks, but it's not for me. I don't feel I need to cry and wail and scream to get better.

I thought SD was talking about having any feeling, or being able to experience ongoing daily life kind of feeling things. But maybe that is what she meant. In which case, I'd say reevaluate that goal and see if it makes sense for you.

Anne

My T is not like that. Early in therapy he must have sensed me straining to have intense feelings or something, and he said "you don't have to perform when you come here." That comment really helped me to see that I didn't have to have intense sessions each time. We could have mellow sessions without high emotions and still get stuff down. What he really wanted was me to come as I was and not try to force something that wasn't there. So mcl6136, I don't think all Ts are as you describe. Maybe you can check out that assumption (that you're doing therapy wrong, etc.) with your current T and see what he says.

This is how it has been for me too. When I was so contained and couldn't feel the pain and bad stuff, I also didn't have joy in my life. It was such a delight and reward to find that once I experienced some of those stored up bad feelings, I suddenly felt good things. Whoa! Fantastic. I remember once when this was first happening just sitting there and looking at T and saying, "I feel happy." That was so intense! Soupdragon, maybe you could use the thought of all those good feelings that will come as a motivator to work on the painful feelings.

Being Spock helped me get through my childhood, so I understand its value. I'm not Spock now, but it was really useful back in the day. Helped me survive, get through, etc. Maybe it's not all bad that you are not Spock?

I do think it is expected of me to feel / show emotion. Twice in 2 years a tear has come to my eye and that's been it. I used to hate it when I went in and there was a box of tissues within reach of me - I asked T to remove them in the end - I hated sitting there with T waiting for the bit that was going to really hurt.

I constantly feel like I am doing it wrong and my wobbly times come a day or so later - then I manage to get everything contained again in time for the next session and that's how it proceeds every week.

Not that I could easliy afford it, but I even wondered whether a solution was to ask for extra sessions for a few weeks in order to really keep my buttons pushed.

I don't consider you are hijacking, I welcome others experiences.

The only feeling I have is constant anxiety - but maybe that is not a feeling but a physiological experience....or are they the same thing?

I originally went to T with a couple of issues, one was just not knowing anything - who I was, where I was going, how I was...I don't think I have moved from there, I still see life as a pretty pointless exercise, like Groundhog Day.

8 years ago I thought I had it all - life was perfect....and then the rug got pulled from under me and I faced losing everything I ever cared about, in fact some things I did lose. But apparently that is just how life is sometimes.

So now I am not sure if I am scared of looking forward in case I face the same pain at some point, or whether it is because I believe that I will never feel those wonderful feelings again.

I guess this is where I tell myself again to trust the process?