I have 3 brothers (no sisters) and we have 4 sons (no daughters. until the last 2 years I’ve been blessed with 2 amazing daughter-in-laws.) For most of my life, I’ve pretty much been the only girl. Not a lot of talk about feelings happened with all that testosterone in my home. However, when I started learning more about feelings a few years ago, and figuring out that I actually had them, my life began to change.
Feelings may sound mystical and strange and many people are uncomfortable talking about them, but when we understand them, they become very useful to us. Feelings are why we do everything we do. We define a feeling as a vibration in the body that’s caused by a thought.
The difference between a feeling and a sensation – sensations are involuntary and start in the body. Feelings, begin in the brain in the form of a thought. We think a thought, and then the brain releases an appropriate chemical and that chemical vibrating through the body is what we call a feeling.
We all have hopes and desires for ourselves and the people around us. But what we really want are the positive feelings we believe we’ll have once we get those things. Instead of looking to control or change the people and things outside of us, let’s take a look at what we’re thinking and feeling.
Think about what you want. Then go a layer deeper and ask yourself what you really, really want.
Ask yourself how you believe you’ll feel when you get what you want. (maybe it’s accomplished, confident, proud, or whatever). In every case, it’s the feeling you desire. That’s great news when you consider that all of our feelings come from our thoughts, which we get to choose.
As humans, we typically don’t like the way negative emotions feel, so a lot of our behavior is an attempt to change or avoid them.
Most people are unaware of what they are feeling most of the time and are certainly unable to label or describe their feelings. That was me. If you want to change your life, you must become aware of what you’re feeling in the present moment.
We’re not taught to feel our emotions. Feeling is an ability that most of us need to learn because we’re taught by the media and social conditioning to escape emotions. We are even taught that positive emotions aren’t enough by themselves – they need to be heightened by purchasing something/eating something/drinking something/viewing something, etc.
I’m going to teach you 4 things we do with uncomfortable emotions or feelings. The first is:
Resist
Notice when you clench your fists really tight or grit your teeth? I’ve also heard resisting a feeling described as holding a beach ball under the water. It wants to pop up but we hold it down building pressure around it. The beach ball continues to build pressure until ultimately it pops way up out of the water.
What we resist persists!
2nd thing we do with uncomfortable feelings:
React
Yelling, screaming, crying, is not the same as feeling. When we act out our emotions, we seem to be releasing something and feeling something, but we’re often just acting them out and not processing or feeling them at all. Feeling doesn’t look like “acting” – a feeling is something you can do sitting on a chair and experiencing a subtle vibration.
Reacting means we are allowing the emotion to drive us and we are operating at the effect of it.
3rd thing we do is:
Avoid
We escape or distract ourselves through some sort of buffer (eating, shopping, working, exercising, scrolling social media, drinking, drugs, etc.)
The last way – which we want to do, is to Allow an emotion.
Allowing is a skill you have to learn and practice.
Here is how to Allow a feeling:
*Name it (one word) sad, glad, fear, frustrated, disappointed, etc.
*Find it in your body and describe it (remember a feeling is a chemical vibrating in your body)
Where is it? (chest, belly, throat, etc.)
What does it feel like? (do you feel it in your chest, gut, throat, head – Is it tight, hot, buzzing, queasy, heavy, fast, sticky, smooth – What color is it? What texture?)
*Relax into it
Take deep breaths and allow it. Relax your muscles and think about just holding that feeling inside your body as long as necessary).
*Remind yourself the feeling is only here because of “sentences in my brain”.
*Allow it until it subsides
Think about carrying around a purse or backpack of your emotion for as long as it takes. If you’re driving in the car, set this feeling in the seat next to you.
Allowing you emotions is one of the most important skills you will ever learn. Once you are good at it, it can completely change your relationship with yourself and all the people you come in contact with because you won’t be reactive, but rather the compassionate observer.
When we start becoming more conscious of our feelings, we’ll spend more time observing ourselves. This may be awkward and might not come easily, but remember that feelings are harmless. A feeling is simply a vibration in our body, and nothing more. Feelings can be felt without taking any action or reacting at all.
Our feelings are like a compass to keep our lives on track. When we learn how to allow them instead of resisting them, there is nothing we can’t handle.
In our effort to be happy all the time, we stay away from discomfort that could help us evolve and inspire us to make our dreams come true. What if we were willing to fail epically and try courageously? What if we accepted that emotional balance means that 50% of the time we’ll be on the other side of happy. That is the normal human experience – a balance of positive and negative emotions.
One of the most impactful quotes I’ve heard, that I don’t always appreciate at the time, but I do believe it, and have witnessed the results that happens when I feel it.
Brooke Castillo, one of my coaches and mentors says:
“Discomfort is the price of growth.”
Hmmm, something to think about.
Have a good one y’all ~ and here’s to love and All the Feels!
