Marilyn writes: “I was working with a client the other day getting the felt sense in her body. She had a ‘grouping’ of feeling words that presented themselves per her dilemma. I instructed her to say ‘hello’ to the feeling words. I also stated to her that it was OK for these feelings to be there, as I continued to ask her to welcome/accept them.
“She told me they were very powerful feelings with much anger in them, and she was
scared to say hello to them. She didn’t want to acknowledge and accept them.
“I instructed her to then step back a bit, as she didn’t need to welcome them if she
was feeling this much rage. I asked her to mark the spot, to return to later, and thank her body, etc.
“Was this the appropriate thing to tell her with such strong negative reactions she was
having towards these feeling words? How could this have been handled different, if at all possible?”
Dear Marilyn,
Thank you so much for your interesting question! It’s gives me a chance to point our some things I’ve been wanting to say to everyone.
Language is powerful. We can see that, for example, when we look at your word “instructed.” Might there be a difference in your way of being with your client, if you “invite” instead of “instruct”? I am not saying this to be critical, I am genuinely curious, and I invite your curiosity as well. You might try saying alternately “I instructed her” and “I invited her” and notice how each of them feel in your body.
I like the move of inviting the client to say Hello — but I wouldn’t phrase it as saying Hello to the words. “Hello” is to “something” that is feeling that way. Like this:
Client: “This place in my chest feels sad, anxious, and angry.”
You: “You are sensing something in your chest feeling sad, anxious, and angry. See if it is OK to say Hello to that place, acknowledging that IT feels sad, anxious and angry.”
“It is OK for the feelings to be there…”– is it really?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You told her it was OK for the feelings to be there. Is it really? It’s not up to you and me to declare that! If you are stating that the feelings are OK, and your client feels they are not OK, then the two of you are at odds. You are not in rapport, and he or she is left alone. We don’t want that, right? Therapy works best when our clients experience us as understanding how they feel, so how they feel makes sense.
If your client’s starting place is that her feelings are NOT OK, then let’s start there with her. With empathy! “Ah, of course, you don’t want to acknowledge those angry feelings. No wonder.”
Where would I go from there? I would say, in a compassionate tone of voice, “And maybe you could also say Hello to something in you that doesn’t want to acknowledge the angry feelings. So both can be here. Both are welcome.”
You see, true welcome means a welcome even for the lack of welcome!
It may be that the one who does not want to welcome the angry feelings needs a turn. “Maybe it wants to tell you more about what it doesn’t want, about those angry feelings.”
“It says angry feelings always get me in trouble.” (For example…)
“Ah, it’s letting you know, it doesn’t want you to get in trouble. You might let it know you hear that…”
Do you see how that works? Everything is “something,” and everything is accepted, and everything has “more” that it can tell.
1 Comment
-
Very interesting conversation. There are times that we find it hard to express and share what we feel to others even to our family, we somehow keep it to our self. That act is very dangerous as it is like a volcano that is waiting for eruption, and during that time, we cannot control it. As much as possible, we should control our selves, we may need to learn to accept and trust other people especially our family.
