How to Feel our Feelings
Tips and Ideas
Often I am asked ‘how can I feel my feelings?’ Instead of directly replying I demonstrate by touching the person on their arm and asking them ‘Did you feel that?’ Until now the answer has always been yes, so I then ask ‘How did you do that, how did you feel me touch your arm? What did you do to allow yourself to feel me touch your arm? A sensation on your arm is also a feeling, is it not?’
The point I am demonstrating is that we can all feel and no one seems to know how to explain how we do it. It is just like ‘digesting food ’, it happens naturally.
“We feel things all the time”
So I remind people that they can feel and if they are not feeling certain feelings, it's not because they are not doing something ‘right’, but rather they are doing something to stop themselves from feeling. As almost everyone can feel hungry, tired or a touch sensation on their arm, I encourage people to let go of their idea they cannot feel their feelings, for this idea in itself can limit our ability to deepen our connection with our feelings.
“Feeling is healing”
As we may at times, perhaps unconsciously, block or resist feeling our feelings, I have composed a list of tips and ideas to support ourselves in opening to them. For it is when we deeply connect and feel our feelings, can we clear and heal ourselves of negativity, poor health and unhealthy habits.
Tips and Ideas
I encourage you to experiment with this list of tips/ideas as you might find that one approach works well for a while and then suddenly stops working, or one approach works only occasionally. It can be a matter of trial and error, so do listen to your own inner guidance for direction.
- Acupuncture, can clear emotional blockages
- Attention; pay attention to your body. Regularly check in and ask ‘How do I feel?’ Appreciate any feeling or sensation, even it is for example, a subtle feeling of warmth. By allowing yourself to be open to any feeling encourages you to feel more
- Beating a Pillow or screaming your lungs out when you sense you are angry but not yet feeling it. An approach coined as ‘fake it until you make it’, a method to safely connect and release anger.
- Body Correction work including deep tissue massage, can clear emotional blockages and release emotions stored in the body
- Breathing- Belly, allows us to feel our body more, thus getting more in contact with our sensations and feelings. In my experience, most people who are not fully connected to their feelings are shallow breathers. Read why we should breathe properly.
- Breath Work such as Rebirthing, Conscious Connected Breathing, Art of Living Courses or these powerful breathing exercises by Wim Hof, that supports us to release trapped emotions.
- Detoxing; cleansing the body of toxins can evoke unprocessed emotions
- Do it Yourself healings including the Emotional Freedom Technique and Self-Releasing, techniques that help us deal with uncomfortable feelings
- Dreams; listen to them. Sometimes we work things out in dreams and can receive guidance about our feelings in them
- Healings such as Releasing Hypnosis, Cranial Sacral Therapy, or Past Life Regression. Healers have a great capacity to support us in uncovering and clearing negative feelings and beliefs
- I am versus I feel. Pay attention to your ‘I am statements’ and try and replace them with ‘I feel’. For example ‘I am fat’, but if you feel fat then instead say ‘I feel fat’. However a sincere honesty is needed here on how you actually feel in your body. Maybe you are overweight but you don't ‘feel fat’, just as someone suffering from anorexia may not feel ‘skinny’. By using ‘I feel statements’ more frequently in your language will help you to connect to your feelings.
- Meditation retreats; longer retreats are typically more effective and can reveal deeply stored feelings and beliefs
- Movement; intense movement, including exercise and dance therapies such as those offered by the OSHO group, can release repressed feelings
- Movies can trigger or evoke our feelings, particularly if the movie has a story line that is similar to one of our unresolved painful experiences, such as a movie with infidelity
- Music can similarly trigger or evoke our feelings
- Stretching routines or yoga can release emotions; possibly more effective when practiced in private, as we may feel safer to feel our feelings when they arise
- Talk to the Pillow. Use a pillow to represent a person or a group of people you are upset with, and then begin talking to it spontaneously and freely about what you think and feel about this person/group of people. Allows us to safely express ourselves while connecting more deeply to our feelings.
- TRE or Trauma Release Exercises are a set of movements designed to help one release tension and blocked emotions
- Writing in a journal can help us to discover and make sense of what we feel
(listed alphabetically)
You might also like to read:
How to listen to your Feelings/Follow Your Heart
Why You Can't Avoid Your Feelings
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Published: Updated Sept. 2020