What Does It Mean to Feel Your Feelings?

Feeling your feelings is simple and natural.

And yet, we often complicate it. We analyze. We explain. We search for the right words. We try to understand where a feeling came from, what it means, what we should do about it, and how quickly we can make it go away.

Sometimes all of that thinking actually takes us further away from the feeling itself.

At its most basic level, a feeling is something happening in the body.

A heaviness in the chest.

Butterflies in the stomach.

A tightening in the throat.

Heat rising through the body.

A hollow feeling.

Pressure.

Restlessness.

A sense of being “pulled” in different directions.

Before the mind and intellect calls it sadness, anxiety, grief, fear, anger, or excitement, there is often simply a physical sensation occurring within us.

Feelings are always happening in response to the situation your are in or what you are thinking about.

The mind naturally interprets these sensations. It gives them names. It connects them to memories and stories. It tries to understand what they mean.

There is nothing wrong with this.

But the story about a feeling and the actual experience of a feeling are not quite the same thing.

Feeling your feelings can be as simple as learning to notice what is happening inside your body.

What is here right now?

Where do I feel it?

What does it actually feel like?

And then, perhaps most importantly, can I let it be here without immediately trying to change it?

This can be difficult because some sensations carry much more discomfort than others. They may be connected to old memories, fears, or beliefs about what the sensation means.

But we don't necessarily have to solve any of that in the moment.

We can simply notice.

And notice what comes next.

Sensations often move in sequences. Tightness may soften. Heaviness may become warmth. Restlessness may become sadness. Sadness may become relief. Something else may arise entirely.

The practice is not to force the sequence.

It is to allow it.

Feeling your feelings doesn't necessarily mean understanding them perfectly.

It doesn't mean having an emotional breakthrough.

And it doesn't mean trying to feel better.

Sometimes it simply means being willing to stay close enough to yourself to notice what is already happening.

A sensation.

A breath.

A breath.

A tightening.

A softening.

One thing becoming another.

The body is already feeling.

Our practice may simply be learning how to listen without an agenda of needing or wanting to make it different.

In fact, this is freedom. Being able to feel without needing it to be different.