A Lesson in Feeling

One of the most important lessons in my life has been learning how to feel – and, by extension, the power of emotions.

To me, emotions are the guides to our lives. They offer the map to and through our subconscious and ego. I believe they go even deeper and connect us with cosmic and divine consciousness. They capture the stories of our past. And, they show us what we've carried forward that needs to be released and left behind.

For people who are healing generational and personal trauma and patterns, emotions are the way, the truth, and the light.

Can we fully trust that fear, anxiety, or shame that arises within us? Yes and No.

We can't trust the stories they tell us.

Often they're catastrophic, fallacies, or entirely unfounded. My brain has an uncanny ability to get caught up in the worst-case scenario as a way of bracing myself for surprises. Unsurprisingly, that strategy doesn't work. Regardless of the surprise or the situation, I'll have to go through the emotions of it.

We can trust that we're actually feeling it.

On some level, there is a part of us that needs – and wants – to face that fear, that anxious attachment or thought, that shame. The feeling deserves attention. We deserve attention. And, oftentimes, when we neglect our feelings, we repeat patterns of emotional and self-abandonment or betrayal. In my experience, emotions can only be released by giving them attention. Thankfully, there are many, many ways to do that.

But first, a lesson I learned late in life is that working through emotions does not only mean mentally processing them. Intellectualizing our feelings is often a way we try to bypass feeling them. We think if we understand where it comes from, why it's coming up in that moment, and what we should feel instead... we've somehow solved the emotion and its attachment to us. That is not my experience and growing scientific literature – as well, as multitudes of ancient cultural wisdom – demonstrate that emotions live in our bodies as much as our brains.

So the key to processing emotions is feeling them... even if that is feeling the emotions of an event decades later.

If I could sum up the state of the world, it would be one that desperately avoids feeling our emotions. That avoids our grief, dampens our rage, performs out of shame, and lives out of fear. We do so much to bypass feeling our emotions and then become frustrated when patterns we’d like to break continue.

The biggest shift in my life has come from embracing, feeling, and releasing my emotions. Somatic, meditative, and energetic practices have transformed my life.

My approach to feeling goes like this:

First, I connect to my body and the sensations I'm experiencing.

My process: I lay on my mat or my couch, or I sit up straight but relaxed in my chair. I connect to my breath so I can calm my mind and drop into my body. (Dropping into my body feels like tension easing and bringing awareness to the sensations happening within me). This process has become easier after spending years practicing meditation. If I have trouble quieting my mind and physically connecting, I’ll put on headphones and play a sound meditation (like this one).

As I move into my body and focus on my breath, I concentrate on my belly rising and falling – making sure my breath isn’t isolated to my chest, which is common with anxiety.

I start to tune in to where I feel the emotion in my body. Generally, I find anger in my hips, lower back, and jaw. I find sorrow and grief in my chest and collarbones. I find fear in the back of my neck up to my head and down my spine. I feel shame from my throat down through my belly. Once I find the sensation of the emotion, I move my awareness from my breath to that feeling – and, I just breathe. I breathe while feeling it, taking deeper and slower breaths as I go.

If I’m having trouble simmering down and connecting, I’ll turn to Yoga Nidra for a body scan (like this).

I don’t attach to any thought or story that wants to present itself… yet. I stay with my breath, my body, and the sensation of the emotion. Sometimes, the emotion is so close to the surface that it's ready to physically express: cry, scream, shake. Other times, there is something deeper it wants to show to me.

So, I imagine myself sinking into it and letting it spread through my body, like I’m sand and it just pours out through me and around me. From here, in this more grounded place with the feeling, I let the deeper expression come forth.

Second, I'll have a conversation with the past.

So, when I enter that more connected state, I'll start a dialogue.

I move from focusing on the sensation of the emotion to focusing my awareness in the center of my chest, on my heart. I'll ask, "What do you want to show me."

Here's a great tool for "connecting to your heart"

Most of the time, an inner child comes forth; sometimes, they’re in a cave, sometimes, they’re in a house I used to live in; sometimes, they appear in a void.

Sometimes, they appear directly in a past event I've experienced, with the other characters from that event present. We all have those core memories tied to strong emotional events of betrayal, rejection, abandonment, judgment, shame, grief, anger, and so on. Those were largely what I was visited by at the beginning of this process, sometimes the same event multiple times.

I’ve also had instances of being in utero for this. I've even had past life or ancestral experiences coming through; events that clearly did not happen in this lifetime of mine. Whatever the scene or experience or version of you that wants to come forth, don’t judge it, don’t question it, just go with it. Trust your mind to guide you to what needs to be seen, so you can release what is being felt and release the power of the trigger that brought it up.

The past is never playing out for me, it's like I enter a freeze frame with it and the only parts that can move are present me and child me. I let child me say whatever she needs to say or do whatever she needs to do. I give her space to say how she feels, something she rarely did in the moments of feeling it.

I let the grief, the anger, the resentment, the guilt, the shame have a voice. Generally, this expression comes with tears, but not always. Many times, if I say the words out loud... the tears come. So, I've adopted a more vocal practice.

I think we often want to move quickly to forgiveness. Because we’re compassionate and logical and understand the reasons why things may have occurred as they occurred. But, there is a version of us, a wounded inner child, that is still feeling an emotion strongly and needs space to express those feelings. I’ve found that the more that I ignore the expression part of the process, the more I stay stuck in patterns that don’t serve my health or well-being.

Sometimes while speaking (without thinking ahead and just letting it pour out), I'll be surprised by what comes out. Sometimes, it is laced with anger for reasons I didn’t know I harbored. Or resentments I didn't realize how deep they went.

And, the words you express aren’t necessarily all fair or true about a person or a situation. But, there is a version of you that feels it is true. And, that deserves to be honored. Sometimes, you don’t know fully what requires healing, you don’t have awareness of all the stories you’ve buried over the years until you let them unleash.

Once those feelings have been expressed through words, I talk to that child. I give her words of love, compassion, and understanding. I hug her, I care for her, I give her the sense of safety she craves. I tell her everything that she needed to hear at that moment... oftentimes about what she actually deserves, who she actually is, and what she is actually capable of. Children want to be seen, heard, and validated… we owe that to the little versions of ourselves.

Third, I'll take child me to the Oasis.

Then, I take that inner child or person – hand-in-hand – to an inner oasis I’ve created. Mine is tropical with lush green mossy ground and wildflowers and a giant waterfall spilling into a pond. I've been doing this practice for a couple of years now, so there are dozens of versions of me here.

As I leave them in the oasis, I give them what they specifically would want. One is playing with friends. One is swimming in the pond with dolphins. One is riding a dragon. One is having a picnic with her family. One is at a birthday party. One is doing magic in the moss. One is meditating ... You get the point.

For me, this is a part of the ritual of honoring the past and honoring what I need. It's a part of a larger process of rebuilding trust with myself.

Fourth, I'll empty the remnants of the experience.

After this experience, I feel relieved and a little raw. Coming out of the emotional state, I'll journal anything that needs to be poured out, or I'll paint if it's an experience beyond words. Sometimes, I'll need to shake slowly to get my body moving past the sensations of the emotions. Sometimes, I'll need to lighten up the energy and I'll put on something to sing or dance to. Or, I'll simply shower and rinse it all away.

Feeling is a personal practice, we all have to figure out what works best for us.

I'll end with this...

As a whole, this is the deep-feeling work that has helped me transmute my pain into understanding and grounding (aka growth). Not just this practice, but all the somatic breathwork, shamanic-style energy work, KAP, Reiki, EDMR, sound therapy, yoga... all kinds of practices have helped me release past emotions.

Meditation and somatic practices – especially breath connection and breathwork – have given me the ability to be present, to be calm while present. I am continuing to heal my nervous system and rebuild a connection between my body and mind that is no longer at war. I’m able to intervene and notice thoughts that are unkind and unhealthy – and understand that there is conditioning or trauma within me that is the source of those… and needs visited.

I trust myself to move through emotions as they arise, which means, I’m avoiding them less and less. This also means I no longer require so much sedation, salving, or distraction in my life. I’m not desperate to prove anything, and I'm constantly seeking ‘positive feelings.’

Feeling is the way to healing. So, feelings – to me – matter quite a bit. They’re true to a part of us, and that matters… because whatever we’re not aware of consciously will affect our thoughts and behaviors subconsciously.