Your Body Is Calling. Pick Up.
When a big feeling like stress, sadness, anguish, confusion hangs out in the body unattended, it can create challenges for our mind-body-spirit connection including a major disruption to our signals of hunger and fullness. These big feelings, if buried or ignored, are the main reason we disconnect from our bodies. We start to have a mistrust in these big bad feelings. We take to viewing the body as a broken object to be fixed from the outside: shrunk down, edited with cosmetic surgery, starved, carelessly fed, over-exercised, under-rested, etc.
The work I do with my clients is ineffective if we don’t invite the body and her feelings into the room. No amount of starving, eating, or compensating will bring us happiness, control, or a sense of peace. We must think from the body rather ignoring the body to create a sustainable and effective path towards wellbeing.
Here are some tips to get started:
Try these steps for walking yourself through a feeling:
We have big emotions and our body is talking to us all the time but we don’t always feel and “listen” to her.
We aren't really taught how to feel. Maybe I should speak for myself, I was never pulled aside and stepped through how to feel a feeling.
So, here is a step by step guide to feeling our feelings to use our body as a resource for strength and wisdom and moving through the world.
Please do this practice with another person if you’ve never tried something like it before. Going into the body can be disregulating and uncomfortable. This is where the “back and forth” work comes in. Do what you can to structure safety. Find an anchor in the room to look at for comfort and grounding before, during, and after. Make a little nest for yourself with blankets. Have a refreshing beverage nearby. Use some essential oils to breath in. These are all tools to bring you back to safety and security if you start to rev up or shut down.
1. Name the feeling. Not, “I feel like I’m too much ~ or ~ I feel he is being a real jack@ss.” (that’s a thought or judgment). But, “I feel scared, overwhelmed, confused.”
2. Where do I feel it in my body? Describe in as much detail the actual physical location, size, shape, temperature, texture, color, weather system, etc. Place your hand on that part.
3. Notice the emotion and seeing what happens. Tracking it without judgment - like birdwatching. Sit quietly and just observe without interruption.
4. Now ask, “What does this feeling tell me matters to me?” Feelings are messengers; sign posts to our values.
5. Is my feeling telling me to do something or is it enough to notice?
6. If my feeling is telling me to do something that I know won't really serve me in the long run (like smashing a coffee cup on the tile floor, pulling up all the political signs in neighbors’ front yard, or eating an entire bag of candy corn), see if it’s enough to imagine doing the action. Because of how our brain works, it’s almost as good to imagine it.
7. Try to thank my body for this feeling. Can I thank the feelings for telling me what matters to me, as a good messenger about who I am and what important and matters to me.
8. Notice if the feeling and accompanying sensations shift.
Thank you body, for being a source of wisdom and strength. I’m sorry for not giving you enough time and attention. I will practice at turning towards you when you send me signals.