With years of practice, many of us have learned how to hide or deny our feelings. Some of us, to the extend that we are unable to recognize what we feel at the exact moment, and some have gone as far as to only notice numbness within themselves. As if the feelings would not inhabit their lives. An extremely smart and pretty teenager asked me last Sunday how could she know what she felt, and suddenly it became so clear to me how |
easily we can take our feelings for granted. The more we try to hide them, the more they try to burst out in one way or another, and the longer we go with hiding and denial, the stronger and overwhelming they become within us.
Our feelings keep us company throughout our life. They are always there, and it is up to us to detect them, give them a correct name, meaning, and process them. The way we process our feelings can become complex and confusing, in some ways not acceptable to society, and without knowing the words for each feeling, they become difficult to be communicated to others.
Our feelings keep us company throughout our life. They are always there, and it is up to us to detect them, give them a correct name, meaning, and process them. The way we process our feelings can become complex and confusing, in some ways not acceptable to society, and without knowing the words for each feeling, they become difficult to be communicated to others.
The reason for avoiding them instead of processing them is obvious. Some feelings are difficult. It seems to be easier to just cover them up at certain moments. If we allow ourselves to feel, we may be exposed to experiencing states that are truly difficult and not always accepted by others around us. Feeling fear, despair, sadness, pain, rejection, loneliness, etc, will make us more vulnerable at the stage of truly feeling these negative states, but recognizing each one of them once it manifests itself, we stand a chance for processing it and we give a chance to ourselves to become stronger. This happens only if we truly acknowledge the feeling, experience it and process it.
Even though many people do, nobody really wants to spend the entire life around a feeling that they don't ever let themselves feel, and not consciously detect it as a feeling that might drive their whole life from underneath. That feeling can be a a fuel for numbers of negative behaviors that we are so often trying to fix by numbing out our projecting our feelings onto others, even blaming them for what we feel or we engage in compulsive and self-destructive behaviors.
By training ourselves to keep our positive and negative feelings on top - detected, acknowledged and lived, we truly start living in all dimensions that our life can bring. We start enjoying the positive events more, and we bravely accept the negative ones, processing them as part of life experience.
Try some of the below to enhance your life by truly feeling what comes around:
1.Take a moment and ask yourself how does it feel: when you are preparing yourself for school, work, interview, to talk to a stranger; when you receive a negative mail, when you see the sunrise early in the morning, when you are returning back home after spending an excellent time with a friend, before and after you have taken a power nap, after you have succeeded in something; Every single moment is a possibility for you to train.
2. Notice what is pushing you down when you are feeling OK. Are the people around you negative? Is it the worry for tomorrow that suddenly comes around?...Notice also what is bringing you up, and remember it for next time.
3.If you have spent years telling yourself to stop being pathetic or dramatic in certain situations, try to let yourself be as you feel like. Imagine that you are your own observer with no interest. Allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. Find the name for it and just let it be for a while. Then think of what you can do to change the situation.
4. Try to find out what happened that led you to feeling this way. Did someone say something that hurt your feelings? Are you being anxious about a forthcoming event or expectations? Is someone's loud and continuous sneezing or other noise driving you mad?
Your feeling will start changing with your action, not because you tell yourself to ignore it. You have to live it, accept that it is a part of your reaction of what just happened at that moment, or during the time that you are currently remembering.
If someone has offended you, the sooner you react to it, telling that person that you feel hurt or upset about it, the sooner your pain will go away. If you keep it within, all what that person will do, will get on your nerves, and only you will be keeping the negative feelings within you, suffering, while the other may not even know that he or she has done something wrong.
All you need is your determination to discover what is there within you, daily practice, breathing exercise to calm down when your feelings are too intense, and if you are unsure of what you are feeling, just take your time. The more you focus on your breathing, the feeling may pop up somehow from within. You will sense it, you will know.
Above all, search for positive experience and recognize the feelings that come from these. Enjoy those moments, too. They are your positive and uplifting capital for the difficult times. The more you experience them, the quicker your comeback from the negativity. Humble exploration and your open self-accepting attitude will bring you where you want to reach.
Even though many people do, nobody really wants to spend the entire life around a feeling that they don't ever let themselves feel, and not consciously detect it as a feeling that might drive their whole life from underneath. That feeling can be a a fuel for numbers of negative behaviors that we are so often trying to fix by numbing out our projecting our feelings onto others, even blaming them for what we feel or we engage in compulsive and self-destructive behaviors.
By training ourselves to keep our positive and negative feelings on top - detected, acknowledged and lived, we truly start living in all dimensions that our life can bring. We start enjoying the positive events more, and we bravely accept the negative ones, processing them as part of life experience.
Try some of the below to enhance your life by truly feeling what comes around:
1.Take a moment and ask yourself how does it feel: when you are preparing yourself for school, work, interview, to talk to a stranger; when you receive a negative mail, when you see the sunrise early in the morning, when you are returning back home after spending an excellent time with a friend, before and after you have taken a power nap, after you have succeeded in something; Every single moment is a possibility for you to train.
2. Notice what is pushing you down when you are feeling OK. Are the people around you negative? Is it the worry for tomorrow that suddenly comes around?...Notice also what is bringing you up, and remember it for next time.
3.If you have spent years telling yourself to stop being pathetic or dramatic in certain situations, try to let yourself be as you feel like. Imagine that you are your own observer with no interest. Allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. Find the name for it and just let it be for a while. Then think of what you can do to change the situation.
4. Try to find out what happened that led you to feeling this way. Did someone say something that hurt your feelings? Are you being anxious about a forthcoming event or expectations? Is someone's loud and continuous sneezing or other noise driving you mad?
Your feeling will start changing with your action, not because you tell yourself to ignore it. You have to live it, accept that it is a part of your reaction of what just happened at that moment, or during the time that you are currently remembering.
If someone has offended you, the sooner you react to it, telling that person that you feel hurt or upset about it, the sooner your pain will go away. If you keep it within, all what that person will do, will get on your nerves, and only you will be keeping the negative feelings within you, suffering, while the other may not even know that he or she has done something wrong.
All you need is your determination to discover what is there within you, daily practice, breathing exercise to calm down when your feelings are too intense, and if you are unsure of what you are feeling, just take your time. The more you focus on your breathing, the feeling may pop up somehow from within. You will sense it, you will know.
Above all, search for positive experience and recognize the feelings that come from these. Enjoy those moments, too. They are your positive and uplifting capital for the difficult times. The more you experience them, the quicker your comeback from the negativity. Humble exploration and your open self-accepting attitude will bring you where you want to reach.