How does one "feel" their feelings?

I've so often been told to just myself "feel" my emotions instead of running away from them.

that is kind of confusing for me. how does one "feel" their feelings?

isn't the fact you are aware of the feeling in the first place "feeling" it? sure, I may run...but not before I feel it. is it a matter of duration? is it about not running away?

either way...i'm still not sure what it "looks like" to feel my feelings?

I think it's a person's ability to feel and EXAMINE what they're feeling; that is, instead of just going, "Oh crud! Anxiety! RUN AWAY!!", saying "Oh crud! Anxiety! I bet this is because my mom yelled at me, and it feels like I'm being thrown around violently on the inside," or something like that.

Did your T or Pdoc tell you this? Maybe you should ask for a better explaination.

luck&love,
~muse

Welcome to the club.

(((((((((((Ipse_Dixit))))))))))))))

My (former) T always was telling me to "stay with my feelings" and that I was allowed to feel them and express them and I knew I was a tad emotionally bottled... but his homework for me to do that every single therapy session was REALLY hard work.

I think there's a difference between knowing an emotion is there, between feeling the emotion, and then letting yourself outwardly express it.

I for one cannot seem to get angry. I can feel angry, but instead of directing it at people, I direct it at myself. I don't want to let myself feel angry because then I feel out of control. If I'm not in control, I can't deal with the situation. So my task is to try and allow myself to be visibly angry at people who (righteously) deserve it. Still not working well, people think I'm joking.

I guess I don't make much sense, I'm sorry.

Hope you find an answer to your question.

For me it's kind of like the difference between tasting something new and actually eating a few bites :-) You know how when you are tasting something new you have preconceived ideas about how it will taste and whether you'll like it and whether how you like it will show and please/displease whoever is asking you to taste it, etc.?

One should be "at home" in one's feelings as they belong and start from one's self, don't come from the outside. I know I always felt feelings were something that happened "to" me, like a bad surprise :-) instead of something that came up "from" me.

Feeling are extremely useful as they can orient you and let you know where you are with something, can anchor you to yourself and help center you.

My T had to "teach" me what my feelings were (as often I'd run too fast to identify them). One day near the end of a session she asked me to think about "humiliation" for the next week. Well, naturally I hit humiliation everywhere I turned that week :-) I actually hit it bigtime at work when a VP yelled at me publicly for trying to help him :-) That led to "anger" and I experienced and "worked with" what was going on and formulated a wonderful plan of what I'd say/do if he ever did it again and how to stay out of his way and why, etc. It was extremely empowering and my T was so thrilled she gave me "disappointment" for the next week -- LOL!!!! -- you guessed it, within 24 hours I was disappointed big time. But I had the same "good" experience and worked out a lot of my transference relative to my stepmother that I was putting on my poor husband.

Those are the only 2-3 feelings we did that way because I "got it". One thing I did/do on my own that seems to help is, when I'm miserable/unhappy about something I asked myself, "what else would you rather be feeling in this situation?" I feel a bit better usually because of the old no-laughing-at-funerals rule; feelings are almost always appropriate (when they are, when you're not laughing during a funeral :-) so looking harder at them and what they're "for"/are doing helps in that case.

Those are very good explanations. I also don't feel anger either. But my T says I internalize my anger. I feel like self destructing a lot. Feelings & emotions confuse me.

I've been reading through the responses over and over...trying to get into the common thread I am discerning in them. (Not that there is an intended common thread, but my mind is looking for one...as most minds do...trying to find a pattern)

...the common thing i pulled out seems to be first about: fear of our feelings. then second there seems to a link by taking "action", the action of exploring what the "feeling" is being "used" for. i guess it goes with the thought...everything has a purpose. like Perna said "feelings are almost always appropriate" -- and we are talking "feelings" - not what we *do* with those feelings. the things we *do* may not always be appropriate. but that may be because we don't have connection to the feelings behind them. so reacting without "knowing what we are doing" is what we want to avoid.

this doesn't really speak about "how to feel feelings"

maybe the first feeling that needs action on is the "fear" about the "feelings".

I'll ruminate more later.

I think what's common here is a "stop, look, and listen" approach.

Stop from running away...

Look/examine what is happening, what emotion is there....

Listen to what that emotion is saying...

Ipse, I think it takes time.. (Either that or I am wayyyy slow in getting it, but I'm not giving up!) Slowing down and not running away is the hardest part for me, as well as just being able to name the emotion.

I think it takes time, and knowledge, and becoming familiar with feelings first.

What do you think?

.

How interesting this should come up. I've been looking at emotional regulation (and yes - I have a hard time defining my feelings and staying with them - T has suggested that I just allow myself to be depressed or angry or hurt etc.).

Some interesting things I just got out of a book that I'm ruminating on:

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1-Your emotions serve important purposes.
2-Emotions, in order to serve the important survival and humanistic functions for which they were designed, must be experienced and acknowledged.
3-The more you avoid emotions, the more powerful and urgent they become.
4-Feelings are always right. It is what you do with them and how you react to them that can be hurtful or maladaptive.
5-Feelings are not values. They are a form of sense, a way of experiencing the world. They are holistic, residing in the body, mind, and spirit and not just the head.

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The book also has all these steps for how to experience emotions and cope with them. The main points seem to be to identify the emotion and experience it first before working towards diminishing it's impact on you. That's pretty hard. Both parts - identify and experience.

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canders7 said:
So my task is to try and allow myself to be visibly angry at people who (righteously) deserve it.

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canders, what does it look like to be "visibly angry"? Does it mean having an "angry" expression on your face? Does it mean yelling? Does it mean talking in a pissed off tone of voice? I don't know how to do it and need clues.

WinterRose, what is the name of the book you wrote about? It sounds helpful and interesting.

mindfulness meditation...

One exercise that you can do is to focus your experience on your emotions. It can be a tricky exercise to do. The notion is that:

- You are not your emotions. What this means is that you can observe your emotions without getting lost in them / feeling consumed by them.
- Emotions come and go. The intensity ebbs and flows like waves lapping on a shore (you will find that out when you do the exercise). The point is to observe them and feel them without either clinging to them (trying to retain them) or pushing them away (refocusing ones attention on something else)
- Non-judgementally. You aren't moving. You are sitting there being aware of your internal states. There isn't any danger of acting out. Emotions just are... Like how you can observe the external world just as it is without judging aspects to be 'bad' or 'good' you can do the same in observing your internal world.

Sometimes we don't feel emotions because we are afraid we will act out (we are afraid of anger because we think we might thump someone - this is where meditation helps because you aren't moving you are just sitting)
Sometimes we don't feel emotions because we are afraid they will consume us by becoming too intense (meditation helps you learn that the intensity does ebb and flow)
Sometimes we don't feel emotions because we think that feeling certain emotions is 'bad' or 'wrong' (this is where lifting the judgement helps and just observing them like one can observe external objects)

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sunrise said:
WinterRose, what is the name of the book you wrote about? It sounds helpful and interesting.

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Depressed & Anxious
The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Workbook for Overcoming Depression & Anxiety
by Thomas Marra, Ph.D.

Oh gosh, I am struggling with feeling as well and I just posted the following quote in a different thread but thought it is appropriate for this conversation as well:

"Try recognizing the ways in which you meet obstacles with harshness. Experiment with being soft when your impulse is to be hard, generous when your impulse is to be withholding, open when your impulse is to close up or shut down emotionally. When there is grief or sadness try letting it be here. Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. Notice any labels you attach to crying or feeling vulnerable. Let go of the labels. Just feel what you are feeling, all the while cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, riding the waves of "up and down," "good and bad," "weak and strong," until you see that they are all inadequate to fully describe your experience. Be with the experience itself. Trust in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be wakeful."

From "Wherever You Go There You Are" by Jon Kabat-Zinn

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sunrise said:
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canders7 said:
So my task is to try and allow myself to be visibly angry at people who (righteously) deserve it.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
canders, what does it look like to be "visibly angry"? Does it mean having an "angry" expression on your face? Does it mean yelling? Does it mean talking in a pissed off tone of voice? I don't know how to do it and need clues.

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Basically if I'm mad at a person, I'm not allowed to hide behind a mask of not-caring. (That's the tough one, it's my safety net so I don't get hurt) The easiest thing I found was to put on a "mad" face and tell them outwardly that they were upsetting me and to please shut it. (Or in not so nice terms...) It seems that now that my "anger" is a little less bottled against "safe targets" (people who I know can take it, won't retaliate against me and won't make me feel horrible) ... but the people I'm really mad at, I can't be mad at them - they scare me too much.