We spend most of our lives running away from uncomfortable feelings.
Yet the suffering is not from the feelings themselves, but from the resistance to them.
When you are ready to truly feel what you’ve been avoiding, it can open the door to new insights and peace.
If you’re on the path of waking up, learning how to process feelings and emotions fully is essential, if you want to move from intellectual to embodied awakening.
Please note that in this article I’m using the words feelings and emotions interchangeably.
What Does it Mean to Process?
To process is to fully experience. It’s the opposite of burying or bypassing your feelings.
This is simple, but not easy, because we’ve lost touch with what we feel. You may not even be aware of the sensations dancing all over your body right this moment.
If that is the case, you will have to reconnect to the body.
When you first reconnect, you may experience discomfort and restlessness, but stick with it, and it will be replaced with a sense of being alive.
This doesn’t happen after feeling everything just once. This is a practice. You return to the body over and over. Eventually it becomes natural, the way it always was.
Why Should You Learn How to Feel?
Perhaps the most obvious reason is that suppressing feelings doesn’t work.
When you begin to feel fully, you realize that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Yes, it won’t feel amazing, but all things considered, it’s much better than pushing feelings away.
And if you’re on the awakening path, emotional work is an essential part of that.
So if you’re inquiring into the separate self or ego and you don’t seem to be making much headway, but strong emotions are coming up, then that is showing you what to explore next.
Often the feeling of separateness is the avoidance of feeling, so emotional work and awakening go hand in hand.
Related Article: What is Spiritual Awakening? (An Honest Guide)
How to Process Feelings and Emotions Fully
Learning how to sit with feelings comes down to just feeling.
In most cases, it’s not that easy, because there is resistance and sometimes protective mechanisms in place.
When we were younger, our thinking and distractions may have saved us from being overwhelmed. In that sense, they helped us. Now it’s time to explore if that help is still needed.
Let’s explore a few techniques:
1. Explore
Start by getting in touch with your body.
Feel what is there. Feel your hands, arms, legs, and feet.
Then bring your attention to your torso, which is where most emotions and feelings seem to reside.
Pay attention to how your mind wants to instantly label what is going on (fear, sadness, joy, neutral), whether you like or dislike what is there, and what it means.
Instead of going into the label-game, pay attention to the sensations. Observe how the sensations constantly move. They may pulsate, undulate, shimmer, or even circle.
When a feeling like sadness is labeled, it is pointing to ever-changing sensations that are constantly coming and going.
The first step is to become curious about what is going on. Notice the sensations dancing in the body.
2. Feel Everything
Let’s say you’re exploring fear in the solar plexus area.
When you tune into it, maybe you notice that there’s a heavy pulsing, but it also radiates outward.
If you want to dive in right away, recognize where the fear is in the body, and let it expand as much as it wants. Feel everything fully. Focus on the core of the fear, and allow it to spread.
In other words, instead of trying to make it go away, try go make it bigger.
If you want to take a gentler approach, observe the outer parts of the fear. For example, if the fear is in the solar plexus area, the outside edge might reach the heart. Instead of diving into the most intense part of the fear, start by feeling the edge first.
As the intensity lessens, move toward the center of the fear until you’re feeling it fully.
3. Resistance
It’s highly likely that you will resist this process when you begin.
You may find yourself caught in thinking or fantasizing about what you’re going to do next.
This is to be expected so don’t beat yourself up if it occurs. Simply return to feeling.
Note any resistance, and include it in the feeling. Welcome the feeling of resistance and the thought associated with it.
Be aware of distractions. Anything that takes you away from the feeling is likely a distraction.
Remember, it’s not enough to do this once. Keep welcoming the repeating resistance. If there’s resistance to the resistance, let that also be okay.
4. Distancing
You may also notice a pull to distance yourself from feeling.
This can arise in the form of labeling, judging, evaluating, or even taking the subtle position of a feeler feeling something.
Whenever you notice a pulling away, return back to feeling everything.
For example, if you notice the thought “I can’t take this,” become aware that it is a distraction from fully feeling and the resistance itself is what is creating the suffering.
Welcome that thought, feel it fully, and feel the original sensations (fear in this case).
A Note on Distancing
There is a place for labeling emotions if they are too intense. This is what is done in Vipassana.
For example, you can keep it simple by sticking to three labels: image (internal visual), talk (internal sound), and feel (sensation).
It might look something like this:
- Thought about not wanting to feel = note talk
- Squirmy feeling in chest = note sensation
- Image of feeling bad on playground at age 5 = note image
There’s no right way to do this. Listen to your intuition and what feels right. Experiment and try things.
Now, here are some common questions about this process.
Q: What if the Feeling Doesn’t Move or Shift?
If the feeling doesn’t move or shift, there may be some resistance.
If you’re feeling the emotion just to get rid of it, it won’t work. Instead, approach this with curiosity. Go in with the attitude of learning what is going on.
Pay attention to where in the body the sensations are, how they move, and notice what the resistances are. Become a scientist that is just there to explore, not to get rid of anything.
When you first start, you may notice an aversion to unpleasant feelings. You just want to run away, or distract. It may be so habitual that you don’t even notice it until you’re grabbing some ice cream or fantasizing about the future.
Go easy on yourself. Bring yourself back to the feeling and feel it fully even if the mind is freaking out.
Do it for just one minute at first, then take a break.
Q: What if I Can’t Feel Anything?
Start by feeling your hands. Put your hands on your lap and notice how you know that your hands are on your lap. There are sensations there.
Put your hand on the table. Note the coldness, neutrality, or warmth. Explore the whole body like this and eventually it will come alive.
Practices that bring awareness to the body may also be helpful, such as qigong or yoga.
Q: How Do I Explore Resistance?
Try saying things like:
- I am ready to feel this fully
- I can release this now
- I’m not afraid feeling
If there is resistance, “it” will respond. When it responds, pay attention to what it is saying, and feel it fully.
You can also dialogue with resistance and fear. Simply ask what the fear is protecting. This may take some time, as the answers can come in whispers or opaque images, but you’ll get the hang of it.
Q: What if a Feeling or Emotion Won’t Stop?
Sometimes when you begin processing and feeling, the body may have a lot to say.
I’ve sometimes unearthed sadness that has lasted for weeks. It’s generally not constant. It comes and goes in waves.
If this happens, take some time each day to lie down and feel everything. It’s nothing to be afraid of. The mind may say that this is stuck here forever, but that’s another distraction from feeling.
Notice that the resistance to feeling is the suffering. It’s not the sensations in the body that are the problem, it’s the resistance to them.
Important Note
This is not about getting rid of any feeling or emotion, but about seeing that everything can be felt.
There will always be pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant sensations. That will never change.
Learning how to feel is simply about getting comfortable with being present with emotions.
Notice what comes up as you read this. If you want this to be done, that is avoiding feeling something. If you feel the urge to look for another technique, that is seeking trying to escape what is here.
On Trauma
Over time, if you aren’t seeing shifts and more relaxation, you may want to stop, and find someone who can help you process feelings and emotions.
This is especially true if you feel worse the more you try to do this. This is an indication that there is a mechanism trying to stop you from feeling, because it doesn’t feel safe.
A good route is to work with a professional that is familiar working with trauma and difficult emotions.
You could also check out the following book on the topic: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
(Disclaimer: The above link is an affiliate link, which gives me a small percentage of any sale you make on Amazon. Thank you in advance for your support!)
A Relevant Summary
Learning how to process feelings and emotions comes down to fully feeling everything.
The suffering comes from the reaction to what is felt. Thoughts weave a story about how you can’t handle this, how you have to escape, and how the future is doomed.
This escape into thoughts, in many cases, helped us survive when we were younger.
But the question now is: Are these protective mechanisms still needed?
If not, the answer is to begin exploring what it is like to feel everything.
Reconnect with your whole being and begin to taste the aliveness that has always been here.
All the best,
Henri
The post The Art of Feeling: How to Process Feelings and Emotions Fully first appeared on Wake Up Cloud.
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