Three Ways To Feel
what to do with the emotions inside us
My whole life I have been trying to figure out what to do with the emotions in me. I’ve often fantasized about being the stoic, strong, immovable rock that some men can embody. While I have made progress with that aspect of myself, I am not one of those men. You can often find me agonizing over decisions like what to have for lunch or going on angry rants about the injustices of our monetary system.
I, like many people in the grips of emotional pain, seek the comfort of healing retreats and seminars. Therapists, coaches, and spiritual advisors are standard in today’s world instead of taboo, and there is a celebration of people’s expression of emotion, for better or worse.
In the famous book “The Body Keeps the Score,” the author reveals that unprocessed feelings and emotions will always come out sideways. They will manifest in a tumor or cardiac condition.
I’ve been to the retreats, read the books, tried the different spiritual paths, and am trained as a coach. While my adventures and discoveries in healing spaces will never end, I’ve distilled what I think are three simple ways to process emotions.
These ideas aren’t new, and I don’t do these perfectly, but maybe they’ll help you conceptualize what to do to with what you’re feeling inside you. It’s a package deal: you will need all three suggestions. A reliance on one while excluding the others will leave you imbalanced and less whole.
1. Feel It
This one is the most common and cliché, but also the most pernicious. Yes, when we have an emotion that is so clear and identifiable that you can just lay on your bed and feel it, then go for it.
My anger seems to be just unfelt sadness. When I inquire to the root of my angry trigger, it typically is heartbreak I don’t want to feel. It is hard for me to feel sad, probably programmed into me somewhere in my upbringing that it is a show of weakness. But when I find a day when somehow my psyche allows me the permission to feel sad, I lean in. And the release the next day is cathartic. I can noticeably realize the peace after that day of feeling. There’s a lightness about me. A monkey off my back and less tension in my shoulders.
The trouble here is that we can become self-indulgent in this practice, allowing our emotions to consume our thoughts, actions, and path ahead. I’ve met plenty of people on their healing journey in a vicious “healing and feeling cycle”. Going to the same retreats and leaning into the same issues. They simply don’t see that that cycle is now their new comfort zone.
Despite my inclination to be sensitive to people’s emotions, it can also be an excuse. I do not neglect that sometimes one does have to suck it up and get on with it, because life is difficult. The grit it takes to bear it carries its own lessons. But when feeling or gritting through it feels too intense, here are two other options.
2. Transmute
Sometimes when you are stuck in the feeling phase you just need to transmute. You need to use your gifts and/or mission to take your yucky feelings and turn them in to something new. Compose. Create. ACT. In fact, the very feelings that are inhibiting you might be because of a lack of progress or what I heard a Gestalt practitioner call “stuck vitality”.
This is the ultimate artist’s instinct. Whether you’re artistically inclined or not, transmutation is something we can all do. The artist draws the painting, acts the scene, or writes the book. She takes her nebulous feelings and existential angst and transmutes it into something beautiful.
Something as simple as working out, playing with your child, or volunteering at the local food bank can also be acts of transmutation. Working out is more than just a hit of endorphins. It is an expression of the body. It’s the recirculation of movement and stuck energy. Playing with your child brings you back to a childlike state, where your emotions were probably stuck. Serving others can get you out of yourself completely, transmuting your own neurosis into a service mentality.
3. Give to God
Last but not least, there’s God. Most spiritual paths recognize that we can’t do it alone. The human experience is simply too much to bear. Jesus died on the cross to take on our burdens. Buddha lays out the eightfold path to help one manage the suffering of being human.
Most religious leaders will put this as the top priority, recognizing that a daily spiritual practice, whether prayer or mediation, is essential. When all else fails, communing with a higher power is something to turn to, especially when you’re stuck between feeling and transmuting. When nothing works and you can’t see a path ahead, a simple prayer or a recognition of something higher than yourself can do the trick.
This is the realm of miracles. When we’re at our lowest and turn to God, circumstances appear that the human mind could not have even fathomed before we sat down to pray.
This act is a white flag of surrender. Admitting that no matter how many worldly things I do, it still won’t be enough. It is a death of ego. A recognition that God is supreme. That ego death just might give you the clear vision to see the path ahead, but it won’t be your path. It will be God’s path for you, which usually works out better than yours.
Context
It is easy to tell someone to deal with their feelings, but harder to explain or demonstrate how. My intention with this blog is to give you a context; a playing field on which you can navigate the mystery of your internal emotions.
I encourage you to use all three. One time I realized that how much I was working out (transmute) was actually a guise to cover up to my grief (feeling). Another time I became aware that was how much I sat around trying to feel, was keeping me from moving forward with what I wanted to create in my life. And too many times I tried to do it all on my own, without God, and that simply didn’t work.
When I ask clients to try to identify the emotion in their moment, their eyes often look up and imagine. They aren’t looking to God. They are stuck in their head. And let’s face it, we all are. Only when I invite them to take a breath, close their eyes, and put their awareness on their body can they get closer to the specific emotion. We’re disassociated with what’s going on below our neck. We’re numb after years of bad training. Retrain and Rethink. Feel, transmute, and pray your way Back to the Body.