This is one of the most important sacred self-care practices you can do for yourself.

Feeling Your Feelings

What does feeling your feelings mean?

Feeling your feelings means checking in with your emotions and then taking mindful action to address them. This process involves recognizing your emotions, identifying the triggers, and making sense of those feelings so you can better manage your emotions.

For most of us, the last thing we want to do is feel our feelings, especially those uncomfortable or negative emotions because feelings can hurt. We protect ourselves by blocking those emotions and shoving them back inside or distract ourselves from them which can cause anxiety, depression, or sudden outbursts.

We live in a society that resists and fears emotions. We block and avoid our emotions because acknowledging them is often perceived as a weakness.

What happens when we block our emotions?

When we don’t recognise our emotions it can have a significant effect on both our physical and emotional health.

1. Avoiding our emotions actually makes them stronger.
2. Setting negative feelings aside leads to physical stress on our bodies.
3. Mental fatigue
4. Tension within the relationship
5. People who avoid recognising their emotions pursue some form of distraction like alcohol or substance abuse to give them a temporary lift or escape.
6. Shorter lifespan/Early death

How to feel your feelings?

Part of taking care of ourselves and our health requires healthy processing of emotion.

1. Identify the emotion.
2. Acknowledge it.
3. Sit with it. Feel it.

Feeling our feelings and acknowledging our emotions is the strongest thing we can do. When we recognise our feelings, we will learn how to manage and resolve them. This in turn will bring us peace, clarity, and it will brighten our lives. Remember that feeling your feelings takes practice, so be patient with yourself!