Last week's session start of Body Scan meditation ugh

Last week's session was a new thing we started, some silence, and this thing called body scan, where , we closed our eyes and she did some guided meditation with it. I don't like silence, for one, also she says it's for emotional regulation. If you don't know, I suffer from gad, bp1, ptsd, bpd. We haven't gone too much into trauma work, due to , stressors, and I was manic last year, ect... She wants me to get in tune with my feelings. I don't get the part about, where are you feeling your anger, or sadness ? What part of the body ect.. she wants me to answer, what sensations I'm feeling . Name my feelings. It's all so confusing. I know anger ,sad. Has anyone done or currently doing this?

I don't think so. I like guided meditation but have never done it with a therapist.
She used to ask the feeling sorts of questions but then always criticized the answer by telling me what I said was not a feeling - so I stopped. I saw no point to playing a game with the woman that I was losing but she would not explain why.

That's another thing, a feeling is not an emotion and an emotion is not a feeling, but that's a whole other thread.

I only feel happy, sad and angry too, maybe its a bipolar thing. My T doesn't ask about emotions and where they are but does ask about sensations and where I feel them in the body after we dicsussed my confusion with emotions and not knowing the names of them besides the 3 listed above, i haven't ask for an explanation from him as things crop up and we get distracted.

When I do body scanning as part of meditation I focus on sensation.
My toes feel cold, my legs feel tired and heavy,etc. I thought the point was to be present in the moment without getting caught up in thoughts/feelings. So I focus on physical sensation.

To be honest, she was looking for relaxation from my part, it made me a bit tense, closing my eyes, remain still, an trying to follow what she was saying. My mind is all over the place, atm I'm on the down irritable side of the swing.

Yes, it's called somatic experiencing and my T does it all the time. She asks me the same question: where are you feeling it in your body. I usually say " I don't know". Like yesterday when I said I was sad. Where do you feel the sadness? She helps me by asking "in your chest"? I rarely feel anything there. I say "my stomach" because it hurts. T asked if I can feel my legs, my arms? I usually say yes, but yesterday I didn't think I felt anything, and said I felt like I was floating. That's when she put her feet on top of mine. Of course she asked if she could do that first.

The emotions are all in my head, T says. I'm always in my head. She wants me to learn that our bodies hold our feelings so the sensations we feel are important. When I'm in session and anxious, I hold my breath a lot. T points this out and she gives me ways to calm down.

I hated the body stuff at first but now I'm used to it even though I still don't know where I feel my feelings. I'd suggest giving it time. Also, have you taken DBT? There's a whole module on emotional regulation. I need work on that too. The breathing, guided meditation, body scan, are ways to quiet your body, which then quiets your mind. It does work!

We are going to try it again. Next week , I think for several weeks, let's see how it goes.

Sweepy, my therapist does something similar with me. It was weird at first but then it was very comforting. I hope it helps you.

My Ts do it to help me not dissociate. If you have trauma stuff that you are going to be working on, they may be setting things up so that you can stay safe while you are remembering/talking about/processing. One t talked about it helping me to stay in the present while recalling the past. So that I wouldn't get overwhelmed by the stuff in the past and get stuck there. It does help me.

Thank you, I found it very uncomfortable, but hopefully it will be for the best.

Yes, that's what she is saying, she needs me to relax and be in the present, so I can be ready to deal with the past. I just have lots in the present going on. I don't know how to relax.