Internal knowledge: how to learn to feel? Live in the present or how to start feeling life.
In my work, I often come across clients who are completely unable to feel. Boys and girls, very young and older, they just never thought about the fact that they have feelings. They paid no attention to their bodily sensations. Naturally, they sometimes nevertheless notice them, but rather do not reckon with them. These clients simply don't understand what it means to feel. My question is "What are you feeling now?" makes them smile or even laugh, they ask again what I mean, and, like understanding, begin to answer the question, describing their thoughts or telling a story from life.
For such "insensitive" clients, I often propose to conduct an experiment: close your eyes, focus on the sensations in your body, and tell me everything they feel. This experiment is usually difficult: "I don't feel anything," clients tell me. And when I start asking questions more specifically (are you comfortable to sit? Are your hands warm or cold? Do you notice how you breathe?), It becomes possible for the client to answer me something.
The lack of sensitivity in many people is caused by the peculiarities of their upbringing. For a child to learn how to handle his feelings, he needs parental support. However, parents often ignore the feelings of their child, as if they are giving him a signal that his feelings are not important, they should not be taken into account and rely on them.
In addition, the emotional upbringing of boys and girls also has its own characteristics. As you know, many parents do not welcome when their sons are too sensitive - “they will not grow a real man". And, conversely, in other families, boys should not feel anger and show aggression, because then “a bandit will grow out of a child”. For girls, anger and anger are also prohibited, but they should be friendly, sweet and benevolent even with those people who may be unpleasant to them. Many children are basically not allowed to be angry with their parents because "this is bad."
Often, parents show excessive guardianship, not allowing their children to make choices, focusing on their own feelings and desires, even where this could well be the case. "Which doll do you want: in a red dress or in a yellow one?" "What fairy tale do you want to hear: about a bunny or about a hedgehog?" "What cartoon do you want to watch?" By depriving children of the opportunity to choose and making it for the child, an adult deprives him of the opportunity to learn to be sensitive to himself, to listen to his desires, to notice his interest. And now, having matured, such a "insensitive person" cannot even answer such a simple question as "What movie do you want to watch?" There is no way to hear yourself and feel your desire: a person is faced with a feeling of emptiness. That is why it is important that parents pay attention to the child's feelings, help him clarify his feelings by asking about them (“Are you cold?” “Are you comfortable”), and also describe what is happening to him (“I understand that you are offended "," It looks like you are angry "," I see that you are scared ") and with those around you (" Your dad was upset ").
A person who has lost contact with his feelings cannot rely on himself. He does not hear the signals from his body, or, hearing, does not trust them. He does not know what gives him pleasure or displeasure, he does not understand whether he is doing something according to his desire, or because it is necessary.
The life of "insensitive" people is filled with different things that they perform automatically, sometimes without feeling at all whether they need it. Yes, they find a rational rationale for everything, logically and consistently describing all the benefits that they will receive as a result. But these descriptions, made from the head, are not at all filled with pleasant feelings: excitement, interest, excitement. Having achieved their goals, they do not feel satisfaction and pleasure from the result.
Skipping our sensitivity, we may one day face unpleasant consequences: We bought a thing that we absolutely did not need, took on a project that we were not at all interested in, or we communicate with people who are unpleasant to us.
We can forbid ourselves to feel strong emotions, simply by fearing that they will overwhelm us that we will not cope with them. Having once smashed the phone against the wall in a fit of rage, we are afraid that we will not be able to stop in contact with another person in time, causing him harm. Or, having failed once in love and left with a broken heart, we simply cannot afford to love again so as not to experience more pain. That is, a person consciously chooses to give up feelings that are intolerable to him.
Very often there is a substitution of feelings bad habits or by some actions: a person seizes, drinks or lights up his anxiety, or, trying not to notice loneliness, fills his life with various "important" things, etc.
Every day we experience a huge number of feelings, good and bad: joy, sadness, interest, disappointment, fear, anxiety, irritation ... Pleasant feelings remain unnoticed by us, they are simply lost in the cycle of different events. Unpleasant feelings get stuck in us, accumulate inside, if we do not notice or suppress them, we do not allow ourselves to experience, controlling them. Finding no way out, feelings begin to eat away from the inside, coloring the world for us with a certain unnatural color.
One of the reasons for insensitivity is lack of training. The ability to understand your feelings, to address your feelings, is a skill that can be developed.
The first thing I would recommend to you is to focus more often on the sensations of your own body: just be aware of whether you are warm or cold, you are hungry or full, you are in a comfortable or uncomfortable position, etc. Going to bed in the evening, take a look around your entire body, note the sensations in different parts body, try to strengthen each of them, stay in it.
Second, there are a variety of activities that allow you to turn on and feel the body: sports, stretching, massage, swimming - everything that will give you the opportunity to strengthen body signals.
Third, try to slow down the pace of your life, make more stops, give yourself the opportunity to feel every moment, take your time, live every state, and not just automatically alternate activities. Take a leisurely walk home after work, enjoy the evening, fresh air, coolness.
Fourth, watch the children. For how they make discoveries, how they rejoice and are surprised at some simple things, with what interest and enthusiasm they make new discoveries. Try to remember yourself as a child. What did you enjoy doing that caused a lot of pleasure and excitement? For example, you really enjoyed drawing or collecting puzzles. Maybe you should try doing it again?
Fifth, get familiar with feelings in theory. What they are, what are they called, when they most often arise, how they express and respond in the body. Try
remember situations when you could feel them, how strongly these feelings were expressed in you at that moment. I am sure that if you take enough time for this, you will discover for yourself that large quantity feelings are familiar to you.
As you start observing your thoughts, their flow will begin to diminish. I used to think about what I just didn’t think about. For example, you need to call a person, prepared for a very long time and thought and thought ... And now I do not allow myself to waste my energy so thoughtlessly. If I'm not ready, I don't call, without regrets and without criticizing myself. If I feel ready, I dial the number. Likewise with business, I do not think it over. I give time to "brew" the process, appear necessary people, events begin to line up in the right way. If something doesn't work out, for me this is a sure sign not to start thinking, but to postpone decisions and actions for now. After all, a woman should have everything easy and simple.
Stop dreaming and flying in the clouds as it could be. I'm talking about fruitless dreams that only take energy away but don't lead to anything. You need to dream, I would say to wish, but in a special state - harmony and fullness. You need to release your desire into the world, and it will come true very easily. Right desires fill you, make your eyes glow, fruitless dreams empty you. But this is a topic for another conversation. Subscribe to the newsletter not to miss.
What will the principle "Live in the present" give?
When we are aware of our body, concentrating on our movements, our mind calms down. The female mind is very restless today. He does not allow you to relax and get real pleasure from life.
As you begin to use your body, your sensitivity and the resulting sensations will become fuller and brighter. This means that life will become more joyful and more diverse. Don't look for sensations on the side, they are in your body.
When you live in the present and are aware of what is happening, you are truly involved in the communication process, for example, with your child. How often our communication comes down to feeding, putting to bed, controlling. We seem to be close, but energetically very far away, therefore children get sick and behave badly, because they do not receive life-giving subtle vital energy from their mother. The fullness of communication and happiness from communication with a child can be felt if only you are fully involved in the process, your whole body, all your senses.
By using all your senses, you can feel and the world, look at him, interact with him differently, getting incredible pleasure. You will begin to truly see, hear, feel everything that happens in life.
You can really feel the beauty of the surrounding world. How many emotions, how many new positive moments nature or animals can give. By by and large we are blind and deaf, our eyes are blurred, and our ears hear only our own mental reflections. We have forgotten how to be observant, attentive, to receive pleasure from the rays of the sun, from the singing of birds, from the variety of shades, forms, and beauty that are in this world.
Living in the present, you will be able to enjoy and enjoy the simplest things. Note that our life consists of simple and ordinary things, holidays, vacations and vacations take up a very small part of ordinary life.
Our mood is determined by our feelings. When we are not aware of what we are feeling, we are addicted to uncertainty. Start choosing your feelings and your mood will improve dramatically. Nothing prevents you from replacing frustration with curiosity, anger with attention and kindness.
The process of living in the present is very creative. The more we pay attention to the good, the more it becomes in our life.
The more you begin to be aware of your actions, actions, motivation, feelings, thoughts, the faster you will free yourself from different things. mental junkwhich makes your life miserable and deprives you of energy.
“I began to return myself to reality and there was more energy. Moreover, I did not need to do this for a long time. I felt much better on the second day. It turned out that my seemingly harmless hovering in the clouds takes a lot of energy. "
Fill your every step with meaning and positive manifestations. Don't just go outside, getting annoyed, but start wishing people good mentally. Good deeds increase your awareness, and you begin to live in the present with those people who already exist, and not sometime later, when everything changes and everyone becomes ideal and loving.
If you begin to feel life, then your life will become calm, unhurried. I am not saying that there will be no movement in it, there simply will not be unnecessary fuss and rush in it. Life will become beautiful, joyful, happy, harmonious and conscious.
Only you can change your life by just starting to live it! The content and fullness of everyday life depends on you, color it with new sensations, new feelings, colors and your woman's life will become perfect. She will never be boring, sad and lonely, you will not expect something special from life, understanding and feeling that your life is already special, you just need to learn to feel it, savor every moment and live from your heart every minute.
Tatiana Dzutseva.In contact with
Our therapist Margarita Shanova gives recommendations on how to invent your own language for communicating with the body, to clear up the “emotional blockages” and start real changes. We publish a transcript of the live broadcast from January 25, 2018.
We talked a lot about how the desire to follow standards, to care for the visible body, for the outside affects us. We had a conversation with a makeup artist ... Now let's discuss the feelings from the inside.
Let's imagine that there is such a scale. At one pole there are people for whom the appearance is much more priority than other sensations. Or are they people for whom it is not very important appearance, but physicality is not important for them either - they "live in the head". This pole is familiar to many.
The other pole is when appearance, "beauty" are not important at all, nothing depends on them. What will remain in the perception of the body if the external image leaves? Let's imagine this extreme. Let's do a thought experiment. If what I look like doesn't matter, then what are you going to think, care about? What will bring inner comfort?
When I answered these questions myself, the following came to my mind. Sleep, delicious food in the right amounts for the body, clothes (not the style, not how it sits, but how comfortable it is). If the significance of the body seems to disappear, then we “close” the visual channel and “open” others. These are impressions for the body: sounds, smells, touch, movement.
Body dictionary
But here we are faced with a problem. To feel your body, you need to have the skill not only to listen to yourself, but also callhappening. And we usually do not have that vocabulary that we could use for inner sensations. Usually the set is meager: "it hurts, it doesn't hurt," "pleasantly-unpleasant," "warm-cold," and most often just "normal."
When it comes to emotions, we, too, often have to find out at the beginning what they are. Relate specific feelings to the word denoting them. Often people come to our Center who say that they are "bad", but cannot specify what exactly is bad, how bad. We gradually teach a person to better understand himself. It's the same with bodily sensations.
Analogs of external actions are often used for this. For example, speaking about pain: pressing, sharp, dull, twisting. All these descriptions are derived from verbs, from what can happen outside: crush, twist, etc.
Sometimes we use metaphors: it presses like a brick, lightness, as if there is light and air inside.
"Non-contact" with the body
If we do not have a "dictionary" and we ignore the signals of the body, then it becomes a storehouse of our needs, unspoken desires, untransmitted emotions. And when the body, like a basement, is littered with over the years, it is stuffy and cramped in it.
Many who begin to practice meditation notice that what I find in myself is not always pleasant. Pain can be found muscle clamps... It so happens that the first contact with the body reveals that not everything is in order with it, but we are used to ignoring it. So there is a temptation to emphasize even more on the external or to devalue the body so as not to face the unpleasant.
A common situation of "no contact" with the body can manifest itself in words. The man says: I understand everything with my head what I need to do, how, but I do something completely different. This signal is about a mismatch between our thinking sphere and our emotionality. The body with its impulses and the head with its thoughts live on their own.
In this case, describing our bodily sensations, we can draw a bridge between thoughts and the body. I can imagine as much as I want that my partner is the best man in the world, but in his presence I feel constrained. This is a signal that there is a catch, and the body reports it.
This is a rather intimate process - how I live myself through the body, feel myself together with it.
From point A to point B
After you begin to feel the body, it remains to admit: you got it this way - this shape, this size. With your experience and past, you have experienced physical and emotional trauma in this body. All this lives in the body. Whether it signals well-being, relaxation, or SOS signals is a reflection of how you lived in it. Not by itself “the terrible body was corroded,” but something happened in life that led to this. And now we need to take a sober look into the eyes of the situation and understand that the body is not without reason. But because life was not easy.
You understand: what is happening to me, this is me. We describe point A, in which we are now, and set goals for how to get to point B. For example, feel the signals, improve our personal deciphering vocabulary, and understand fatigue in the early approaches.
It might seem that listening to the body is one continuous discomfort. But this is not the case, of course. Everyone, I think, can remember pleasant moments caused either by some events or at the moment of physical actions: skiing, skating, walking.
By examining the body, we can gradually clear away the debris that has accumulated inside. The body will tell you what you want, what food to choose, how comfortable it is with certain people... The body will become a huge channel of information.
Now let's move on to the answers to the questions.
"I hate my body"
My question is this: All my life my mother, and then I myself have limited myself. There were many diets. Now I am finally tired of them and the very idea of \u200b\u200ba diet is hateful. I allowed myself to eat what I want and when I want. I have gained two sizes. And now I seem to be calmer, but sometimes I am visited by a state in which I simply hate my hips and stomach. Your body. It's a lot for me, it's heavy. Panic starts and I don't know what to do. I overeat because of anxiety.
The first thing I want to say is that you have already come a long way. I can imagine how much effort you put in to get off the dietary road.
What is happening to you now is a natural step in your recovery from an eating disorder. When the topic of food lets go, thoughts about food stop attacking us in the morning, afternoon and evening, then the next step is to work with the body image, with the perception and attitude to who I am.
I can assume that if your mom and you have a lot of dietary experience, then criticism of your body, constant evaluation, dissatisfaction is something that is strongly ingrained in you. Change, like nutrition, takes time. This is the first thing I want to say: what is happening is natural, you are on the right path, give yourself time.
You describe that sometimes you are "in a state where you hate your body." I want to draw your attention to the fact that the level of hatred towards the body is not a constant, but the quantity that changes. Sometime less, sometime more, sometime you are happy with yourself or almost satisfied, and sometime you don't like yourself so much that it causes panic.
I invite you to observe what causes the hatred of the body, where are the triggers that actualize these familiar states of self-rejection. In what situations is this value minimal, and when you do not think about the body at all? That is, make a scale for yourself and ask yourself a couple of times a day: where am I now?
For example, tight clothing was one of my triggers. I always wanted to buy the smallest possible size. Then, in the process of wearing, moving, the fabric wrinkled, folds were visible, the strap pressed. And the feeling of oppressive clothing was my trigger, causing me to feel fat and chronic self-dissatisfaction. When I began to adjust the clothes for myself, and not myself for the clothes, it became much calmer and more pleasant.
After you observe this scale, it may become clearer what to do next, these states will cease to be incomprehensible, uncontrollable.
We have in the center body image group , where we very carefully and in detail analyze the reasons for not accepting the body, do a variety of exercises in order to better understand ourselves, learn at the first stage to treat ourselves neutrally and be able to withstand those strong emotions that are sometimes associated with the body.
You might also like conscious eating group to reinforce the new eating style, non-dietary. On the one hand, you write that you have gained two sizes, and I do not know at all, maybe this is your norm. But if you have any doubts about this, then on the group of mindful eating, having formed and honed the skill of attentive and mindful eating, you will notice that the weight gradually goes away if it was excess.
And ideally - go in two directions: and polish your nutrition, and take steps towards the study of the body.
Intuitive nutrition and antidepressants
I have a question about antidepressants and sedatives. How difficult are they to understand body signals? And what if you take blood pressure against depression and at the same time want to learn how to eat intuitively?
The question is very specific, thanks for that. Specifically, I answer: the signals of the body and their understanding are not disturbed by the intake of antidepressants. It is true that some antidepressants increase appetite, and it is worth asking your doctor if this drug has such an effect. We have experience working with clients who started the study of Intuitive Nutrition without medication support, and then added it if there was such a need. In my opinion, it became easier for them, because they gained strength, felt less emotionally stormy, there were some inner opportunities to devote time not only to their condition, but also to nutrition.
Boredom and overeating
Hello! First of all, I want to say thank you for introducing intuitive nutrition in my life! Now I am facing such a problem. I have learned to react to hunger, which arises under the influence of strong emotions, but I cannot recognize the "boring" hunger, when at rest I am pursued by an incredible desire to eat something. As a result, my day turns into waiting for meals. It strains me a little and pulls me down. Please give advice on how to work in the direction of "not thinking about the day." Thank!
Thank you for the words of gratitude, I am glad that our ranks are growing. Boredom is like a lid on a saucepan, there is always something else under it. Some thoughts, emotions, needs that you obviously do not feel, but feel that you are simply bored. For example, it may be the need to change activities in this moment, in some new impression. If you sit at home or in the office and lack some stimulus, something invigorating, then that becomes food.
Behind boredom there may be an experience that what I am doing has no meaning, is not valuable to me, I would like something else. But deciding what to do is difficult, and food and distraction are always at hand. Therefore, look for what is behind this boredom.
The last question for you to think about: what do you think, if you were not constantly thinking about food, if you did not have to constantly be in this dilemma: eat - not eat and what to eat, what else would you think about? What other difficulties do you have in your life? Hope my comment will move you forward. And you can always seek advice from the Center, where a specialist will help you find what exactly is hidden behind the feeling of boredom.
"Am I not worthy of being thin?"
Hello Margarita. Thank you for covering this important topic! I try not to limit my diet, to be guided by the bodily signals of hunger and satiety. However, when I eat this way for some time, I start to notice that my body is getting smaller, losing weight. And immediately it becomes a cause of intense anxiety, and a trigger for immediate overeating! A thinner body for me is still something insanely desirable and important. So much so that it seems that I am not worthy of it, that it is TOO great luxury for me. A lean body is associated with attractiveness, femininity, joy, lightness, and success.
How can these stereotypes be destroyed? How can you ease this anxiety and calmly allow your body to change?
Perhaps this is a kind of feeling of my “badness”: I am so bad that I cannot get what I want. You write that this is too much of a luxury. And then I assume that there is a belief that you are the one who must be on a starvation diet all the time, for whom excesses are impossible.
Where does it come from? Are these attitudes manifested only in the field of nutrition and attitude to your body, or do you generally think that you are not worthy in many places?
Or maybe you have a fear that, having lost weight, you may not live up to expectations? Even their own. If everyone who is thin seems attractive and successful, then it seems to impose responsibility. As if, as soon as I lose weight, I am obliged to become problem-free and always enjoy life. But this is not so, it is an illusion that can slow you down.
In other words, I invite you to identify the beliefs that you have about yourself or about "thin people." And then be skeptical about them.
A good strategy along the way is practice meditation... There are many of them on the net, during this practice you simply observe the thoughts, emotions, states that appear. Not merging with them, but simply noticing: now there is panic. But if it appears, it does not automatically mean that you need to go to eat. You can watch what will happen next, and if at this moment you resist the impulse to go to the refrigerator, then you will notice that this is just an emotion that, like a wave, comes, reaches a peak and leaves.
I recommend separating from your thoughts and states, learning to look at them from the outside. And in parallel, alone or in therapy, I advise you to look for the roots of beliefs. This can be done in our group or individually.
Happy person is a conscious person
Nice but controversial article. This is about the question of what you choose: comfort or achievement (\u003d success?). Although, this question can be viewed from a different angle: you choose yourself or the approval of the environment. Sometimes you want to be recognized more. It seems that for the sake of this one can be patient.
This comment refers to an article by my colleague "What is bodily comfort?"... There is no question as such, so I will share an example-metaphor that came to my mind. I have a colleague, she is the owner of a shock of red curly hair. And she once said that perhaps she would like to become a member of a group of black-haired women with straight hair. To be accepted there, she would have to straighten her hair every day, dye her black and tint the roots regularly. If for some reason it is very important for her to be in this group, then we can weigh: is it worth it? If not, you can look for a group of redheads. Or one in which hair of any length, color and curliness is acceptable.
A happy person, in my opinion, is one who knows his values \u200b\u200band can follow them. If the value of being in a group, of being successful, outweighs the value of being yourself, then that is now. It is just important that this is a deliberate choice.
Once again I invite you to the group Body imagewhich I lead as a therapist!
Video recording of the broadcast:
Feel yourself feel / feel 1. To experience certain physical sensations (about the state of health). With noun with meaning faces: sick, wounded, father… how does he feel? good, excellent, healthy, sick, broken ...
I only feel unwell when I go up a mountain or a ladder. (A. Chekhov.)
I feel very strong physically ... (A. Blok.)
The events of recent months made themselves felt, I felt as though beaten ... (M. Bulgakov.)
2. Experience certain mental sensations (about the moral state). With noun with meaning faces: student, artist ... how does it feel? calmly, confidently, a person, guilty, happy, out of sorts.
I will always thank God for the real happiness that I experience thanks to you - to feel better and higher and more honest. (L. Tolstoy.)
I walked next to her, trying to keep up and, to my surprise, did not feel constrained at all. (M. Bulgakov.)
In the calm days that came, Blok felt so good that he was able to start work again. (S. Alyansky.)
Educational phraseological dictionary. - M .: AST. E. A. Bystrova, A. P. Okuneva, N. M. Shansky. 1997 .
See what it means to "feel" in other dictionaries:
Feel yourself - FEEL, your, you are; anny; nonsov. that. Explanatory dictionary Ozhegova. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
feel cheap - see the plate ... Dictionary of many expressions
Feel cheap - to be embarrassed, awkward, shy. FSVCHiE ... Terms of psychology
ceased to feel confident - adj., number of synonyms: 1 who lost ground (5) ASIS Synonym Dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary
FEEL - feel, feel, nesov. (to feel). 1. what. Experiencing what n. feeling (see feeling in 4 and 5 digits). Feel hungry. Feel warm. Feel love. Feel angry. "Strizhin felt an irresistible desire to drink." Chekhov ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
FEEL - FEEL, your, you are; anny; not true., what. 1. To test what n. feeling (in 1, 3 and 4 digits), to feel. Ch. Hunger. Ch. On himself whose n. sight. Ch. Excitement. C. his responsibility. 2. Be able to perceive, understand. Ch. Music. C. painting. ... ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
FEEL - what, to feel, slightly, to smell, to hear, to touch, to know with bodily, carnal abilities, means. | To cognize morally, internally, to understand, to be spiritually aware, responding to this with impressions. The dead man felt everything around him ... ... Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary
feel - To feel how and by whom to have what, to experience certain sensations (physical or mental). I felt out of sorts and unwell. Chekhov. How are you feeling? (health question) ... Phrasebook Russian language
feel - verb., nsv., upotr. naib. often Morphology: I feel, you feel, he / she / it feels, we feel, you feel, they feel, feel, feel, felt, felt, felt, felt, felt, felt, ... ... Dmitriev's Explanatory Dictionary
feel - [u / st], I think, I mean, nsv; feel / stay, owls. 1) (what) To test what l. physical sensation, condition, etc. Feel pain. Feel fear. Feel tired. Feel thirsty. It was said that Emperor Nicholas, ... ... Popular dictionary of the Russian language
Books
- At its best. 30 stories of people who proved that after fifty you can not only look great, but also feel much more confident than ever in your life, Yakovlev V. What this book is about: For some reason, it is believed that you can only be beautiful youth, and after fifty comes the time "no": you can't dress stylishly, you can't feel your attractiveness ...
Then we lose sight of who we really are. We limit our capacity for self-knowledge and we narrow the field of experience. The methods we use to remove pain and other emotions are firmly rooted in us by the time we are five - just by the time we begin to understand the concepts of loss and death.
This way psychological protection exists in order to keep consciousness in stressful situations... However, he can harm us in adulthood. Apparently, the question is acute: is it worth experiencing emotions or should they be suppressed?
TaylorHerring / Flickr.comWhen we suppress emotions, we become tougher in general, we lose the feeling of fullness of life, connection with desires. We often turn to our past, looking for recipes happy life in childhood memories.
To find meaning in our daily actions, we must understand and study emotions well. They can be healthy or unhealthy, primary or secondary.
- Primary emotions are healthy emotions that help us function, survive and develop.
- Secondary emotions are considered unhealthy. We feel them as a result of making decisions, developing beliefs, in the process of growing up. If we try to suppress emotions instead of learning from them and working with them, then we only increase their negative impact.
Although some emotions get in our way, we can use them for self-development. Many people are afraid own feelings, but they are not as scary as it might seem. We can learn to give them a way out and do it safely for ourselves.
Not the opposite of rationality. They complement the cold and calculating mind and help guide its work.
TaylorHerring / Flickr.com By allowing ourselves to experience feelings to the fullest, we begin to better understand what we really want and what we are thinking, modeling behavior according to this new knowledge.
Feeling emotions is not the same as letting them control our behavior. By learning to experience even the most unhealthy emotions in a safe and healthy way, you can minimize their damaging effects. For example, you will learn to feel pain without becoming a victim or experiencing anger without aggression.
This problem is especially relevant for men, who are taught from childhood not only to suppress emotions, but also to separate feelings "for girls" from feelings "for boys." Because of this, men often have a distorted understanding and perception of emotions. Psychologists note the following features:
- Men tend to "convert" one sensation into another. They transform stereotypical female feelings, such as sadness, into anger or pride, because they believe that the manifestation of such emotions will make them worthy members of society.
- Men show their emotions where it is considered acceptable. For example, they might hug after a goal has been scored on the football field. Unfortunately, in other situations, men are less likely to show positive feelings for fear of being misunderstood by society.
- Men can experience feelings physically. Most often this is expressed in headaches or back pain.
- Men are twice limiting themselves in expressing emotions. First, they fear public disapproval. Secondly, even when a man is ready to experience his emotions openly, for example, to open up in front of a partner, he does not always know how to do it correctly. As a result, even close person can negatively perceive the manifestation of feelings and be afraid of a storm of emotions. In such a situation, the need to correctly express, experience, regulate and interpret emotions becomes obvious.
But none of us are born with the ability to manage emotions. This needs to be learned (preferably with early years) and do not stop there.
TaylorHerring / Flickr.com Emotional therapy practice can help us understand and accept emotions and transform them in a positive way. Its meaning is to constantly remember about feelings, without trying to suppress them, to increase tolerance for spontaneous emotions and live in harmony with them.
When emotions take over, start breathing deeply.
One of the most common practices used by people with chronic pain. Don't suppress your emotions, instead relax and allow yourself to feel and accept everything to the fullest. It's okay to feel angry, sad, painful, or desirous. You just need to learn to live with these sensations without discomfort. To do this, start experiencing emotions.
Don't judge your own emotions
There are no bad emotions. This is a specific kind of adaptation that shows how you dealt with difficult situations at the beginning of his life. Emotion is not a rational response to a given situation, but it shows that you are mindful of such circumstances and a sensual reaction to them. Memories and reproduction of emotions makes us more open to the world around us, because now we know what exactly triggers a particular reaction in us, and do not seek to evaluate it.
Find a way to calm your emotions, not feed them
In other words, you need to find a way to experience the feeling, but not activate or nourish it. If you are in pain or angry, do not waste time mentally simulating the situation. Go through the pain and just wait for this wave of feelings to subside and then let go. Don't try to identify with this emotion, don't focus on this state. Even negative emotions are important: they educate us in a natural response to adapt to the situation. This will lead to a feeling of self-compassion. This means that there has been a significant shift in self-awareness, which is actually quite difficult to achieve.
Remember, we can learn to experience all emotions while still being rational enough to analyze or make decisions. To learn to live with feelings, you need to understand them. This way you will gain the ability to process and regulate your emotions. This is necessary if you want to ever truly build and improve your life.
