Do Not Think Your Emotions, Feel Them
A couple of years ago, I had a huge fight with one of my closest friends. I do not remember what it was about, but I do remember how grief-stricken I was at that moment. Hot tears, snot, sobbing, wailing, bawling, … It was not a pretty sight. The events of that night kept repeating in my head, trying to make sense of it, to understand what had happened. Entangled in those thoughts were fears of the future, what the implications of this fight would be for our future, if it would change anything at all.
Thinking about why I was feeling sad, about what had triggered the events, and what I could or should have done differently, did not help me feel better. In fact, those thoughts were fuel to the raging fire that was my grief. Caught in repetitive loops of thoughts, I was not actually feeling my sadness. I was merely thinking about it. I was consumed by my thoughts, and indeed they were making me feel very sad, yet I had no idea what was happening in my body. I did not feel. I only thought I did, because I knew I was sad, after all. And to me, knowing was feeling.
Until I became aware of the tightening in my chest, the stabbing pain in my heart, and the overwhelming nausea. At that moment I realized there was a difference between the emotion and my physical experiences. I decided to turn my focus away from my thoughts towards the physical sensations. As I did so, the pain intensified, the nausea increased, and the simple act of breathing became even more difficult. As the sensations grew, I was overcome with the urge to run away from them, as hardly and fastly as possible. I was overwhelmed by the urge to run, to divert my attention, to do whatever necessary to not ever feel this again. I realized I did not want to feel this. It was too uncomfortable, too painful. It was too much. So I removed my focus, away from my body. I allowed myself to run away into my mind. I fell prey again to the onslaught of thoughts that I had already thought a 1000 times before. My sadness continued. My crying intensified until I fell asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I had calmed down a bit. Enough to realize that thinking the same thoughts over and over again would not get me out of the funk I was in. It would not help me feel better and it would not help me mend the rift I had with my good friend. So despite the previous experience, I sat down and focused my attention once more on my body. The stabbing pain in my heart had disappeared, but the tightness of my chest and the nausea were still there. Again, I calmed my thoughts and focused solely on my stomach and chest area. I allowed myself to just feel, to only feel until there was nothing but the sensations in my body. The unpleasant sensations in my body. The ones I did not want to feel, yet seemed to increase the longer my attention remained fixed on them. Yet, I decided to stick with my initial plan and to try to hold my attention there for at least 5 minutes. Five minutes is not that long, right? I could do 5 minutes.
As the physical sensations increased, those 5 minutes felt like an eternity. Suddenly, I was not sure anymore if I would be able to do it. But right at the moment, I was about to give up, something curious happened: the physical sensations dissolved.
Poof! Gone.
In their place emerged a sense of wellbeing. A relaxation I had not experienced in a very long time. And a calmness of mind that happened so rarely, that it was truly a gift to be treasured.
With the disappearance of the physical sensations, the intense sadness faded, too. In under the span of 5 minutes, I went from intense sadness to being okay again. It was extraordinary. Never had I experienced anything like this before.
Of course, it was no magical cure. The sadness returned, multiple times, that day, usually triggered by persistent negative thoughts. Yet, every time I focused on the physical sensations, it would follow the same pattern. First, it would intensify to the point where I was no longer sure I would be able to take it, and then, suddenly, just like that, it would be gone.
For the first time in my life, when dealing with emotions, I discovered there was a choice. A choice not to be swept away by the emotion, a choice not to chase those negative thoughts. A choice to feel, really feel, my body. A choice to allow emotions, yet not get enslaved by them.
Often, since that day, I have shared this exercise with my clients. For many of them, it works. For some of them, however, it seems to make things worse instead of better. At first, this alarmed me, until I started asking them what exactly went wrong. Usually, it was either one out of the two following possibilities:
They gave up on the exercise as soon as the physical sensation intensified. In doing so, they never reached the stage where things got better.
They focused on the sensation but were not able to quiet their thoughts. Instead, they would start worrying. Their thoughts would shift from the emotion (what happened to trigger this) to the sensation (why do I have this sensation, why am I feeling this way?) As a result, they were still mostly thinking instead of feeling their bodies. And their thoughts became the food, reinforcing their emotions.
This has happened to me, too. The first time I focused on my body, I chose to not feel, to flee away into my thoughts. Often, I manage to quiet my thoughts but not always. Even so, knowing what I am experiencing in my body, knowing which physical sensations are at the root of my emotions, has time and again proven to be invaluable information.
So I invite you. When you feel emotional, try to discover what sensations you experience in your body. Feel your body. Get to know it. For once, don’t pay attention to those thoughts you have mulled over many times before. Don’t get lost in your emotions. Why not experience something new? Why not feel?
