What if the emotional pain is too much? Read on…
Linda writes:
I am living with recent trauma, as well as old and ongoing trauma. When I pause and try to go into myself to listen, the emotional pain is too enormous for me to do it. In the past when I’ve encountered something of this sort, I’ve followed the guidance from one of your recordings and listen to the something in me that doesn’t want to listen. I’m not able to do that at all now. The strongest feelings I’m living with right now are loneliness, isolation, grief, and anger.
Dear Linda:
I’m so sorry you’re having to go through that. And I do think Focusing can help.
I’d say you are farther along than you think. You said what you can’t do is listen to it. But you are listening when you simply sense how you’d describe it.
How it feels is its message to you. If it feels terribly lonely and afraid, then it wants you to know how terribly lonely and afraid it is.
What you can say back is, “I get how _____________ you feel” and say that over and over with no expectation that you will change it.
(It may change, but not by you trying to change it.)
Also: The whole emotional pain is too enormous, so maybe there is a way to feel it in little bits. Like little sips. Like if the bath water is too hot to go in, you might just dip your toe in it.
Feeling it in little bits might also mean feeling it for only a few moments at a time and then deliberately stopping. You can also try experiencing it at a distance, like “that over there is angry.”
But in any case, you are listening to it by feeling it. Even by feeling how overwhelming it is… when you do that with awareness.
