This post about sitting with your feelings has two purposes:
- It is an excellent follow up to May Be Interrupted by Cranky Winter Weather – and –
- This is the FOURTH Mental Health skill for the New Year
(To find the other posts for the New Year, here is the first (what to do first), the second (two ways to regulate), and the third (easy mindfulness)!
Y’all! WE ARE TOTALLY GOING TO GET FIVE POSTS OUT OF THIS SERIES. When I started this series at the beginning of January, I wasn’t sure. Cold, gray, storms, after-holidays crash…it was a lot.
January was tough, but I’m tougher.
Yes, I Have to Practice Sitting With My Feelings
Sitting with your feelings can suck. I get it. I have to do it, too.
And sometimes there’s no other way but to sit in them and wallow a bit. Ain’t no way but through.
Emotions and feelings need to be processed, like doing laundry. Our emotions are dirty towels, and we are the washing machine and dryer.
Two Ways We Process Emotions & Feelings
In How Emotions are Like Farts, I emphasized that we are designed to feel emotions (physical) and assign meaning to them (mental), and that’s how emotions become feelings.
Our bodies are very good at sensing what’s going on around us and inside us in very efficient and effective ways. Our culture has taught us to ignore those signals.
One of the jobs of trauma, ptsd, and grief recovery is learning how to sense, acknowledge, identify, name, process, express, and communicate our emotions and feelings in healthy (and non-stinky) ways. (Does this sound overwhelming? No worries, I can help, and a Discovery Call is free).
Observing Emotions With Mindfulness
SO…how do you do all this? Sense, acknowledge, identify, name, process, express, and communicate our emotions and feelings in healthy ways?
Observation and curiosity…and MINDFULNESS, which is, essentially, being in the present moment in our bodies and minds.
Being in the present moment allows us to pick up sensations in our bodies, those sensations where something is bubbling up.
For example, I had a very busy day yesterday with clients. I love working with people, and the appointments were astounding.
I had to rush to the grocery store and run some errands. By the time I got home, I felt tears right behind my eyes. My chest felt tight and my breath was shallow. I felt *angry* and resentful, but didn’t have anything I could point to as “reasons.”
My first thought – from a lifetime of trauma responses – was, “I don’t have anything to cry about.” But this was a long-held coping mechanism kicking in.
Because OBVIOUSLY my body needed to move some emotional energy.
What Did I Do?
What did I do? I observed. I breathed into the sensation. I didn’t deny my emotions, even the anger. I hugged my husband (co-regulation). And I CRIED.
Then I began talking about the day – the excitement, stress, chaos, rushing, happiness, joy – all of it. ALL OF IT IS STRESS, and as a trauma survivor, stress can be tough to process. The stress builds, and then I need to move it in healthy ways.
Right now, my body’s favorite way to move emotional energy is crying.
My point is this: if I hadn’t paid attention to signals from my body in that present moment – the tears right behind my eyes, the tightness in my chest, my shallow breathing, the anger that felt safer than tears – I would not have been able to process those emotions like I needed to.
Sitting With Feelings Using the 4 S’s
I’ve mentioned this technique – that I made up! I use it! I love it! – in a couple of posts: The 4 S’s.
The 4 S’s are Sense, Sit, State, and Soothe.
The step that I now s-s-struggle with (haha another S word) is the Sit. I practice this a lot with clients, because it can be easier to sit with tough feelings with a safe person.
In the past, I have fought, lashed out, hid, distracted, and run away from sitting with the emotions and feelings as they crashed over me.
HOWEVER, I’ve started leaning into sitting with my feelings pretty hard, and here is what I know:
- Emotions and feelings will not kill you
- The discomfort of sitting with feelings is *absolutely* worth the reward of not having them stored in your nervous system and body
- Sitting with feelings takes practice
- It’s easier for me to sit with feelings outside or through movement, like walking or stretching
- Practicing this skill has built an enormous amount of safety within myself
How Do We Not Make Sitting With Feelings Suck?
Practice.
Not an s word. Bummer. But VERY IMPORTANT.
One tough truth that I learned about a decade ago was that if I wanted a different life, then I needed to make a different choice.
Instead of lashing out, I needed to observe within myself.
Instead of running away, I needed to be still.
Instead of hiding, I needed to put my feelings into words.
I needed to practice these skills with others and by myself in order to build them up, like muscles.
Learning how to sense, sit with, and process my feelings in real time has been nothing short of – another P word – PRICELESS.
If you are ready to start practicing, let’s chat – a discovery call is free.
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