How to Navigate Feelings

Once we have come to the realisation that ignoring our feelings isn’t an effective long term strategy and in fact makes us more unhappy, we often start to look for alternative options. Unfortunately not many of us are taught how to navigate our feelings, so I’d like to share a highly effective way that we can learn to have a new relationship with our emotions.

Let’s just jump in. Eyes closed, making sure we are breathing deeply and slowly, feel the weight of the body on the seat. I will use the example of anxiety, but it could be anger, or disappointment, or sadness or any other feeling.

So next we notice any physically felt sense of tightness or construction physically somewhere…..often it’s in the base of the throat or the sacrum area for anxiety. Now we address the feeling directly in an open curious and friendly way. Out loud is best if the situation you are in allows for privacy.

‘Hello there anxiety, I notice you are there, and that’s okay.

I’m approaching you with curiosity and interest with no plan in mind to change you. You can stay exactly as you are. All I want to is get to know you, and start to listen to you.

I allow you to be here and I’m not going to try and chase you away. You can stay as long as you like. You are ALLOWED. You are WELCOME.

Now I would like you to use your imagination to give this sensation of the feeling a colour and texture and shape. Let it take a form using whatever your imagination presents to you for the feeling.

Is it moving about or still? Then imagine a big translucent circle extending outside the boundaries of your body.

And say to the feeling…..

Here’s it’s a nice big space for you, for you to move around in if you like or not. You can move anywhere you like in this big space. You can also stay exactly as you are.

There’s no need for you to change in any way, I accept you as you are. I allow and welcome you to be here and I’m notifying you and listening to you.

Keep breathing normally throughout this session and notice any tendency to hold our breath which is normal when approaching discomfort, especially anxiety.

We can do this for sadness too. Disappointment, rejection, shock, worry.

The outcome of connecting with our feelings like this is that with practise, we stop feeling afraid of our emotions.

We learn that we are the ‘host’ and the feelings and thoughts come and go. We can be friendly towards them and allow them. They often have valuable and useful information to communicate to us. In time we can ask the feeling if there’s anything it would like to say to us.

Another outcome of learning this technique and approach to our feelings is that our minds quieten down.

Those feelings would previously often send a red flag that said ‘something is wrong, solve it!’ to the mind. and the mind then goes into its role as a problem solver. Its solutions however are often reactive and we can end up with some degree of catastrophising about the future which then feeds back into the feelings and increases anxiety which then creates more ruminating speedy panicked thinking.

So by going directly to the feelings, preferably with an experienced facilitator for the first half a dozen or so times, it becomes normalised and we then get to a stage that we feel the confidence to do it on our own. That was exactly my experience and what many clients have also experienced. Eventually it becomes second nature and we then further master navigating our feelings as they come and go.

This exercise is not to be used as an antidote to our emotions being felt, however we often find that as a result of leaning in like this that they automatically change all by themselves just by being given some attention.

This exercise is best tried when we experiencing a low level of stress, anxiety or sadness, not when we are in more acute emotional experience. It’s kind towards ourselves to take this slowly and go for the low hanging fruit initially.

For those who have experienced extreme trauma in the past or recently there are special safety measures that can be put in place which involve having an area of the body to turn attention towards if the feelings become too acute, such as the palms of the hands.

I’m happy to guide you during our sessions, it normally takes about 10 minutes and can be extended and combimed with a body scan at the same time. Then we have space to discuss the experience and how you feel.