Processing Emotions

[Butterfly]

This is helping so much I thought I'd share it with the community. Lately I've been looking into feeling my feelings since they were suppressed for so long. I've learned there's 4 base categories and all 4 of them are normal and human. The theory is there is no bad emotion. Mad, Sad, Glad, Scared and three levels of each with the lowest level being the most desirable in my mind. Some Info here.

Ok so now that I've identified these emotions what do I do with them and how exactly to I feel them. Yes, unfortunately this is what it comes down to at my age - learning to feel an emotion. Something I should have learned from infancy but infants naturally suppress anything not pleasing to caregivers in order to survive.

Here's what I found - a technique called RAIN and here's a neat video explaining the process.
https://youtu.be/t9NtQXfULTU

For me it works better and is more therapeutic than Inner Child work which I generally find so very difficult.

[tesscaline]

Ok so now that I've identified these emotions what do I do with them and how exactly to I feel them. Yes, unfortunately this is what it comes down to at my age - learning to feel an emotion. Something I should have learned from infancy but infants naturally suppress anything not pleasing to caregivers in order to survive.

You're not alone there.  Learning to feel my feelings is something that I've been working on for a while.  Like you, it's more therapeutic for me than inner child work.  And not just learning how to feel my feelings, but learning why I feel what I do, and how to "direct" them to be productive instead of destructive. 

It's frustrating, having to do this work now -- having to learn it now, when it's something I was supposed to have been taught decades ago.  But learning it?  Learning that there's no such thing as a "bad" emotion, learning that anger doesn't have to cause Bad Things?  It's freeing, in a way, even if it is hard. 

[Butterfly]

Thank you for sharing your experience with the process, it does make me feel less alone in something that yes should have been learned decades ago. It's helpful to realize that it's better to have learned at some point than never at all.

[I like vanilla]

Thank you for the helpful links. Good information on the article for sure.

I am currently working with a therapist who practises sensorimotor psychotherapy. A big part of this therapy is learning to feel one's feelings. It can be frightening and painful at times, but I do feel like I am making good progress with it and with the support of my therapist. Certainly, I am much better than when I started seeing him about a year ago, and I am optimistic that I will continue to make progress with him and with this type of therapy.

[Butterfly]

Good to hear vanilla. Progress no matter how slow is still progress. At least that's what I tell myself!

[Flutterbye]

Butterfly thanks heaps for the McLaren's article, I find it so helpful!  :bigwink:I love her short summary of actions required for shame, anger, sadness, fear.

I hear you on the inner child thing. I can't use that at all & go entirely on my instincts, gut, feelings, triggerings, bodily sensations that go with the emotions. You're definitely not alone  in being on a steep learning curve of identifying what feelings are happening, feeling feelings and deciding what to do about them.

It took me years just to identify that one of my predominant feelings was terror. I was then disgusted to learn that I felt anger at all let alone often, how rageful a person I was. I've done heaps of work on that and am happy to share that it's getting better; my relationship with my feelings is slowly getting better.

At the moment I am venturing out into social life a bit more & tho I feel ready to & am managing to stay relatively present (not dissociate or EF so much), I notice I am feeling shame. When I meet someone new & like them, I feel shame. When I want to befriend someone new I feel shame. Shame, shame. I just felt this kind of icky feeling in my gut hanging around me for days, sort of embarrassed & wanting it to go away, forget it or to run away from it.. but I'm working thru it, it's mystery is clearing away, I can see it is shame and McLaren's framing of shame is really helpful. There is also a little fear & sadness.

I've also found some Jungian & Eckhart Tolle ideas helpful, that all your feelings or your shadow are simply there as an entity with a certain intensity & character, something you can observe & decide how you want to relate to, that your shadow is your unique shadow, a responsibility yes but not something insurmountable or un-relatable.. I'm finding with work & practice, the storm can be broken down into individual, identifiable feelings, that more than one feeling can happen at once, that I can keep going & try to decide what action to take to serve my best interests rather than get totally stuck in very strong emotion. A few people have told me, notice the 'motion' in emotion, emotions are dynamic; that's a comfort to me to, that feelings come & will go.

[Butterfly]

Thanks for the Jungian & Eckhart Tolle reference, will need to chef that out! For me if I felt anger I would have stood up for myself long ago and there were times I was more in touch with my anger. Sadly I lived in a place of fear most of my life but time to shake that off and get in touch with the rest of my emotions!