What if, because of trauma, you never learned how to tune in to your genuine feelings? Read on…
Andrew writes:
There was a lot of trauma as I was growing up. I realize I never learned how to know what I was feeling or how to actually deal with what my body was trying to tell me.
What’s the best way to proceed?
Dear Andrew:
It’s so good that you have realized you never learned to know how you were feeling. This is the first step, and the most important one.
Some people feel a lot. Their struggle is to calm themselves and get into relationship with those strong emotions. Focusing can help with that.
Other people—like you—don’t feel much. There is that sense of being cut off from feelings, missing the richness of emotional information from the body. And yes, Focusing can help with that, too.
Your first step is to pause often during the day and just sense how you are. Sense in your body. Even if what you get is “I feel cut off,” that is OK. The important thing is pausing and sensing.
Next step: when you do sense something, describe it without judging or questioning it. “It feels tight” or “uneasy” or whatever it is.
Stay with the feeling. Practice allowing it to be felt, just as it is, not trying to change it. This may sound simple, but it’s actually profound!
If you do those two things as a daily practice, it won’t take you long to start feeling the messages of your body. They’ve been waiting to speak to you — and they’ll be so glad you’re now listening!
