How to Feel Your Feelings

Do you know how to feel your feelings?

It sounds like a strange sentence, but it’s essential to consider.

Embracing our feelings is essential for leading a fulfilling and balanced life filled with emotional intelligence.

But how do you process your emotions safely and healthily that lets you live a comfortable and fulfilling life?

This guide explores the significance of acknowledging our feelings and provides practical steps to “feel your feelings”.

What are Feelings?

Feelings, or emotions, are a rich tapestry of self-contained emotional experiences.

They are subjective and independent of ourselves only, with positive and negative feelings ranging from the highs of joy and excitement to the lows of sadness and despair, with deep emotions in between.

Each emotion serves as a signal from our inner selves, providing valuable insights into our needs, desires, and reactions to the world around us.

The Importance of Feelings

Emotions are fundamental to our human experience for several reasons:

Communicate what’s important to us: Feelings tell us what we want and need. The intensity of the emotion (whether that's a particular emotion or physical feeling) informs us of the importance of the emotion/situation.

Give us insight into ourselves: Feelings are a powerful way to understand ourselves better. They teach us about our past and situations and help us learn from them.

Signal us to the world around us: Emotions alert us to pay attention to something significant in our environment or ourselves. For example, fear may signal a dangerous situation (like being love-bombed), while joy may signify a fulfilling and wholesome experience.

Drives decision-making: Feelings guide our decision-making processes, from helping us navigate complex situations to making choices that align with our values and well-being. It can include everything from being hungry to becoming alerted about something uncertain.

Connect us to others: Emotions serve as a form of nonverbal communication, allowing us to convey our inner state to others (such as family, friends, or partners) and to understand theirs. They bind us together.

However, a lot of people ignore or suppress their emotions, leading to anxiety, depression, and stress. Therefore, recognizing, understanding, and embracing our feelings is crucial for overall mental and emotional health.

Get the deep dive into feelings, emotional intelligence, relationships, and love on The Thais Gibson Podcast. Episodes available on major podcast streaming platforms.

Suppressing Emotions

Suppressing emotions may seem like a coping mechanism for the right situation (like healing after a breakup) or because of childhood experiences (like enmeshment trauma) because expressing any vulnerability feels uncomfortable or unsafe.

But burying emotions instead of processing them can have powerful and adverse effects on your emotional well-being. Some of the impacts can include:

Increased Stress: Difficult emotions that are not addressed can lead to chronic stress, affecting both mental and physical health. You will feel like you’re bubbling up from the surface, and because you can’t safely express those feelings, the stress becomes all-consuming.

Relationship Strain: Unexpressed and uncomfortable feelings can strain relationships, as unresolved feelings may manifest as resentment or misunderstandings. That can lead to breakups, divorces, or situations where a couple cannot get back together unless emotions are expressed.

Loss of Self-Awareness: How can someone grow if they hinder self-awareness and personal growth? Ignoring our feelings prevents us from understanding our true feelings, needs, desires, and who we are while ignoring any perceived threat.

That’s why developing the practical skills to detect and build upon your feelings is essential. Thankfully, we have a few simple, practical steps to help you.

5 Steps for Feeling Your Feelings

Step 1: Notice and name your emotions

The first step in developing emotional awareness is to recognize your feelings, which is the easiest. You just have to notice what you’re feeling, label it, and then go deeper.

Start with the primary emotion you’re feeling after a situation or internal experience—such as joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust. Next, dig deeper by recognizing secondary emotions that often arise from primary ones.

This can be complex because you might notice subtleties in your feelings, like feeling hopeful amidst sadness or calmness beneath initial anger.

Focus on these as well as primary emotions.

Step 2: Spend time with your feelings

Nobody wants to spend time with their feelings, but it’s the best way to understand what drives them and how they affect their body.

Once you've identified your emotions, permit yourself to experience them fully without judgment or haste. Here are ways to immerse yourself in your feelings:

• Take some to pay attention to how different emotions manifest in your body. Notice the tension in the upper body, butterflies in your stomach, or relaxation. It helps to know how your feelings are affecting your physical side.
• Take a few breaths and find some silence. By engaging in mindfulness exercises, you can observe and acknowledge your feelings without reacting impulsively.
• Please pay attention to your feelings and do it without judgment or fear.

Play this video to learn how to control your emotions when triggered!

Step 3: Somatic Processing

This simple exercise can help you process your emotional triggers. Here’s the process behind it:

• Think of a recent time you felt a strong emotion (start with something small)
• Notice any physical sensations, but don’t invest in the story.
• Label the sensations you feel.
• Equilibrate sensations with sensations and imagery
• Feed it for a while with visualizing and imagery.
• As you see the emotional charge go down (and yes, this does require focus at times), you can then ask yourself what you need to feel relief and strategize about how to specifically meet this need.

Now that you know what these feelings are doing to you mentally and physically, it’s time to dig deeper into them.

Ask yourself:

• Why am I feeling this way?
• What is my body telling me?
• Are there any unmet needs that I require?
• What do I need now to bring myself in calmness?
• Do I need connection, freedom, or peace?
• What truth might it be highlighting in my life?

You can use these questions above — or anything similar — to open up the envelope to explore what’s triggered these feelings and understand what you need in your life.

Step 4: Express your feelings

Now that you know the reasons behind your feelings, it’s time to find a healthy way to express them. We have already mentioned the dangers of suppressing feelings.

Here are some ways you can do it in a healthy manner:

Journal your thoughts/feelings: Reflect on when you first noticed the emotion, what triggered it, and how it influenced your thoughts and actions. Writing things out is a powerful step toward taking control of your emotions and what to do about them.

Seek different perspectives: Share your feelings with a trusted friend, PDS member, or professional will help you gain insights from other perspectives that challenge your initial thoughts.

• Some other ways to express your feelings include:
• Getting active through exercise, dancing, or walking
• Listening to music you enjoy
• Writing affirmations (positive thoughts or positive self-talk)
• Just cry (it’s good for you!)
• Decompress with hot showers, massage, or yoga
• Use creative outlets such as art, writing, or music

Step 5: Let the feeling go

Now, the hard part.

Letting that feeling go. Feelings are not meant to be “forever”; they’re meant to be present, accepted, then recognized.

Constantly going back to the same feelings leads to ruminating and problems, such as anxiety or core wounds and trauma.

So when the opportunity arises, you should start to "let go" of the feeling. It helps if you've processed it, and if you have done so in a healthy way, you'll be able to move on.

However, you should consider professional assistance if you can't do that.

Summary

• Feelings, or emotions, are self-contained emotional experiences that range from joy to sadness.
• Our feelings give us signals about our needs, desires, and reactions
• Suppressing emotions leads to stress, anxiety, and relationship problems
• It’s important to “feel your feelings” to identify yourself, understand your needs, and become happier and healthier.
• You can do this by naming the feelings, spending time with them, digging deeper, expressing them, and letting them go.

Embracing your emotions is a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance. It requires patience, courage, and a willingness to be vulnerable with yourself.

By honoring your feelings—whether pleasant or challenging—you cultivate a deeper connection to your authentic self and empower yourself to lead a more fulfilling life.

If you need help processing your emotions, consider our “Release Emotions with Somatic Processing” course.

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