on feeling fully - emotions as teachers

For a little while now I have been reflecting on the importance of allowing oneself to feel fully. What I mean by this is enabling oneself to feel all emotions; the full spectrum of them... and learning to let them move through us, entirely. Without holds, without restriction, without limitation. This doesn't mean acting on them, and it doesn't mean letting ourselves lose our balance (unless we're ready to), but most certainly, feeling them.

A lot of us in Western society are conditioned to allow only some of our emotions. Perhaps you are one of the rare beings who was raised by a very emotionally intelligent caregiver, and you have a healthy relationship to the full spectrum of emotion, having been shown how to let them move and express in a good way.

But for many, only our joy or the feeling of love... maybe a bit of sadness (but not too much), is allowed.

For a lot of us, our anger, our depth of sorrow, our fear... is exiled, pushed away and labelled as wrong or bad.

I have first hand experience with this.

The powerful fire of my anger and the strength of it's movement through my body was pushed down and denied again and again when I was a child. As an Aries, with a lot of fire energy, this was quite damaging on a level of boundary expression and self perception, and I was never shown how to let it move through me in a healthy way. This grew within me a repression of anger instead - an unconscious belief that any feeling of anger is bad and wrong and not allowed. And, let me tell you -- working through this one and re-learning has made big waves in my being!

I have learned how important it is to feel anger, immense rage... and grief, too. And life has affirmed again and again that these powerful emotional states are teachers, if we will allow them to inform us.

A lot of the time our beliefs about emotions are unconscious. Formed during our early years and thus not fully recognized in our adult self. Until for some reason, life's gentle or not so gentle prodding awakens us to the emotions moving and bubbling within. When this happens, it's an unmatched opportunity to consciously examine our relationship with that emotion.

What do we recognize within ourselves when we feel anger?

How do we respond when we encounter sorrow?

Often, because we're not used to allowing powerful emotions, we repress them and feel that if we allow them, we'll get overtaken. We feel like they will knock us over and destroy us.

And really, that very well might be the case.

But, in my experience, that is kind of the point. That is their transformational power.

If we can learn to hold the emotion in the cauldron of our body, and let it move through every cell of our being with awareness, that process can inform us and guide us into a deeper level of embodiment and connection with Self.

Because, as humans, we are naturally meant to feel and respond to life.

We aren't meant to only respond in one or two ways, but to explore and recognize how anything and everything touches us.

And, I think that can happen in layers. We aren't necessarily meant to go deep with every single thing we encounter in the world. (Empaths, read that again!)

Certain emotions and perceptions get burnt off on the surface, while others need to be fully felt and looked at.

Also, sometimes an emotion is too big to feel all at once. It's quite normal to need to increase our capacity to feel something fully, or, to dance with an emotion over time.

So, in Somatic Therapy we take small bites of it. We make it manageable and befriend it. For example: sometimes just thinking of one's sorrow for a few moments is enough. This is called Titration.

I don't want it to sound like I'm saying we have to go all in all the time. It's about growing our capacity to feel, over time, at our own pace, while not pushing away the many natural states of our being in response to life.

I have found that allowing myself to feel the full depth of any emotion is a profound teacher.

Bringing awareness to the sensations it brings up in my body.

Noticing the thoughts it's associated with.

Noticing if it reminds me of something from my past.

Seeing if it makes me want to move in a certain way, or if it makes me want to collapse.

And... practicing following these things. Practicing feeling their energetic signatures.

When we follow them, they show us what we need. They show us that we didn't get to stomp on the ground in anger, and that our body still has the impulse to do so. Or, they show us how shut down we felt when that thing happened, and we might need to let our body express that.

When our emotions get the chance to move and express, they inform us, show us what we need or needed, and then they pass, or they continue informing us in a spiral dance for as long as they're meant to.

The alternative to this is that they get stuck in our body, and cause all sorts of imbalances.

They cause pain, lack of flexibility, tight muscles, organ malfunction. Or, they cause seemingly out of place reactions to life events. Our emotions when repressed, will look for doorways to be felt (one way or another), and to move out of our body.

This is the body's natural intelligence at work.

Thus, taking the time to sit with and process how we honestly feel is essential for health. And not only that, over time, it is often quite nourishing and enriching. It strengthens us.

Just like our bodies need time and space to properly digest food, our emotions need the space to be felt, move and express. Emotion - energy in motion. Whether we hold them in small pieces in a meditation, or get bowled over by the pain of them, they need to be felt.

When denied, they wait to be felt anyways.

This is why I have said for years that meditation is a great way to process emotions. Because, that monkey mind and busy internal world that shows itself when we sit down to meditate is often quite simply the various thoughts, emotions and perceptions that are within us waiting to be witnessed and felt.

It is in the witnessing and feeling of the emotions that enables them to move, express and teach us.

Then we we don't have to carry them. Then, they're no longer weighing on us, asking for attention, distorting how we see the world or limiting our contact with life. Instead, they are clarifying our vision because we are letting them show us what we need to know.

Also, we have to be open and willing to understand in order to get clear on what they're showing us, too. It might not be clear right away.

And, just like meditation, Somatic Therapy is an assisted awareness practice where we do this together. Where we learn to more finely tune ourselves to feeling, processing and transforming energy in the way that nature intended. It is a very natural process that our bodies know how to lead, if only we can learn to listen.

Wishing you much love in your journey of feeling. Know that your feelings are teachers. They are loving allies in this journey of life.

With much love,

Alley