Catching feelings....opening the Pandora’s box, why we need to learn to Feel Again.

Yes, it is nice to have feelings again, but I would prefer them to not happen ALL AT ONCE.

Thank you very much.

Most of us have been told some feelings are not acceptable, not polite, not to be experienced as part of the self, but the emotions underneath remain there, under the surface. 

This is how silly it is for us to deny feelings, or teach children that some feelings are shameful or wrong.  Feelings are just as natural as breathing or your heart beat.

You can’t live any kind of life without feelings.  

    Nothing comes out of the blue.  Many of us experience mood changes that seem to come from nowhere. Remember that in reality nothing comes from nowhere.  Look at what’s going on around you.  

You will learn that there is always an emotional reason for mood changes, impulses, disturbing thoughts.  Much better to face the feeling directly than try to struggle with a symptom.

- Remember to suspend judging the self.  Look at your inner experience with compassionate curiosity. 

Be attentive and loving, but also be inquisitive:  What’s going on inside?  Finding out won’t hurt you at all, despite all the old fears and shames.  

- Acceptance and validation.  Most of what we want from others is summed up in these two words.  We want to be included in the group, accepted, and we want to have our uniqueness recognised. But we won’t get it from others if we can’t give it to ourselves first. 

Look into yourself and your feelings mindfully, without expectations and preconceptions.

All our defensive systems, our character armour are built from trying not to experience our own feelings.  And all this is wrong-headed, based on the false assumption that our feelings are dangerous or unacceptable.  It’s how we express feelings, not the feelings themselves, that can be dangerous or unacceptable. 

We have some ability, and we can develop more, to control how we express our feelings.  Simply paying mindful attention to ourselves helps a great deal.

- Cool  head - pay attention to intuition, hunches, gut feelings.  Don’t think too much, let your emotions inform you.  Hunches frequently do provide you information from your own unconscious that you should pay attention to. 

- Especially pay attention to first impressions of people and situations.  

Negative impressions when you have such a reaction, look into it—mindfully, objectively, carefully.  Try to identify what’s setting it off.  

Positive first impressions are also important; they may be nothing more meaningful than that you think you could have fun with this person—which may be a self-fulfilling prophecy that will bring more fun into your life, not a bad thing.💘💗💋

- Identify what makes you feel helpless, hopeless, or demoralized.  What makes you choke up with sadness or frustration?  What makes you feel like crying?  What makes you want to yell at someone?  Then be mindful of the circumstances.  What’s going on outside you?  What’s going on in your head?  Feelings like these are clues to an important and central issue in your life, a problem you’re always trying to resolve.

  We are capable of incredible hypocrisy, but being honest with ourselves works against that.

- Anxiety is your friend. 

It’s your body trying to tell you something, and you ought to listen.  Most likely, it’s telling you that you’re pushing yourself too hard, pushing yourself into something you don’t want.  

- Anger is your friend too.  Anger is telling you that someone is stepping on your toes, that something is going on that’s endangering something important to you.  

Anger is how we’re supposed to feel when our boundaries are violated.  You may have gotten the message that anger is dangerous, or ugly, or unacceptable:  not so.  The people who told you that may have had something to gain from convincing you that anger is bad.  

In today’s culture, perpetual stress may have you feeling too much anger (because there is really a lot to be angry about) and as a result you may act out your anger mindlessly, hurting those who love you.  This is a real problem, and you have to get skilful about what you do with anger.  But don’t deny your anger; instead, pay attention to what it’s telling you.

- Learn how to get out of a frenzy.  

There will be times when feelings are so upsetting that you may do something impulsive, something you’ll regret later.  

Learn what helps you back off emotionally from these situations, which may be highly individual. The important thing is to develop confidence that you can cool yourself down from any difficult emotional situation, because without that confidence you’ll be too guarded to let yourself really experience your feelings.

Thank you so much for visiting.

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