How well do you know your feelings? The answer could be life changing?
How do you feel?
If this question makes you feel a little uneasy, you are not the only one.
Many people struggle to put their finger on what they are feeling. We often feel uneasy because it is assumed that in order to understand ourserveles we should be able to understand our feelings and emotions without any hesitation, and it is certainly true that the more attuned we are towards how we are feeling, the easier it is to navigate our day to day experiences and steer away from causing ourselves undue harm.
However;
There are still some major misunderstandings about our emotions that block us from truly getting in touch with who we are, and I would like to share some thoughts as to how we can return to becoming more in touch with our-self once more.
Let’s make things simple and start from there:
High and Low
We can split our emotional landscape into something that we can all agree on.
1. Sometimes what we are feeling, feels pleasant/high mood and we would like more of it. Sometimes it feels unpleasant/low mood and we would like less of it.
2. Sometimes the intensity/volume/energy we are experiencing is really high. Sometimes it is really low.
3. This all exists as a spectrum that moves up and down and left to right as we move through our day.
And so:
High mood + High Intensity = Buzzing, excited, amped, etc
High mood + Low intensity = Calm, mellow, peaceful etc
Low mood + Low intensity = Sombre, morose, sad, defeated etc
Low mood + High Intensity = Furious, manic, panicked, raging etc
Middle Mood + Middle Intensity = Normal, neutral, fine, okay, alright.
This simple sysyem is a great starting point because it points the finger inwards towards the sensations of the body/mind. How we feel isn't about a singular chemical or area of the brain switching on and off that we should be able to easily identify. Instead it is our brains attempt to make sense of the crazy amount of information going on inside of our body/mind and to apply it to surviving and thriving in the world around us. Sometimes we are in low energy due to not enough sleep, and in low mood due to a sugar crash, sometimes we are in high energy because of too much caffeine and low mood because of an argument that we have had.
Using this method allows many people to understand their body a little better, without getting lost in the tangle of their life stories and the world outside of their body. Instead they can check in on where the mood and the intensity/energy sits on the scale of high to low. This understanding alone, can give us the opportunity to find our own strategies for shifting or changing the mood or intensity and therefore how we feel.
Emotional Sensitivity
By getting more skilled at shifting our attention away from the judgements in our head and toward our body sensations, we get better at hearing what our body is trying to tell us.
Cultivating this sensitivity takes time and deliberate practice. In order to listen we have to slow down, step away from threat and striving and to treat ourselves kindly.
We can also begin to experiment with building an emotional vocabulary. Our labelling of the subtleties of our emotions can help us to expand our ability to feel.
If we only have two names for how we feel day to day "Tired" and "happy" then that is going to shape our experience. By being curious and sensitive we can discover the difference in our sensations between "Happy" and "Satisfied" or "Tired" and "Worn down". This noticing and labelling helps us to have and experience a greater range of feelings over time, which in turn helps us to respond with more wisdom and choice.
In the words of the poet Mary Oliver we
"....let the soft animal of our being
Love what it Loves"
Once we can tune in and hear our feelings more easily it can begin to help us to understand our boundaries which is particularly helpful for preventing burnout, as well as for being able to enjoy the more gentle experiences in life.
It also stops us from feeling anxious when somebody asks us how we feel because we learn that we are able to give an answer, it just might not be the one they expect.
