As I sit writing this month’s column I could swear that Halloween was only last week yet it is the middle of November. I can be fairly certain that by the time you read this, you will also have seen Christmas decorations in shops and heard The Pogues or Mariah Carey on the radio. The evenings are short and there is a frosty bite in the morning air. “It’s getting earlier every year” is starting to be said frequently about the impending holiday period. Also, I have noticed that newspapers, magazines and online media are already sharing columns, articles and top 10 tips about how to “survive” the season or “getting through” Christmas day, for example. I can’t help but wonder, when did the time of year with potential for comfort and joy become about survival?
As I ponder upon this my mind strays to thoughts of Christmas mornings in my Nana’s house. The smell of mulled wine wafting around the air, the sound of wrapping paper being pulled apart, feeling excited about the Christmas swim and much more. These thoughts are fuelled by powerful emotions and memories. Yet today, they also are tinged with feelings of grief as my Nana is no longer with us, may she rest in peace. I feel the power of multiple emotions at once brought on by the potency of my memories. The feeling is quite a physical experience that I can notice in my heart rate and body temperature along with slight tension in my chest and throat. Comfort, joy, pain and grief all wrapped up in one, pun intended. So, I am led to believe by my gut instinct that this month’s column would be well served by writing about feeling feelings. As opposed to offering a way to simply “survive” them at a time of year that can be experienced as powerful in many ways.
Leslie S. Greenberg, Canadian psychologist and originator of Emotion Focused Therapy, writes that “Emotional expression governs, and changes, interaction. Anger, for example, produces distance, whereas vulnerability disarms”. The holiday season can be a time of the year which reminds people of many things that are challenging. Such as those who are no longer with us, fractured relationships with family members, childhoods that were traumatic and/or abusive, familial estrangements, money worries, pressures to give a perfect gift, the loss of a sense of home or place, the expectation to socialise and much more.
With the challenges inherent to this time of year, memories are activated and they carry powerful emotions that are attached to them. Sometimes, even without a specific memory coming to mind, a smell, sight or sound can bring on an emotion that is out of place and time, an echo of the past so to speak. This is a good indicator of how our mind/body connection works. Sometimes it might seem like we can change or control what is going on or how we feel simply by using the power of the mind. Yet, that is not the full picture. If a specific smell did bring with it an emotion of sadness for example, then the body is where that feeling originates as opposed to the mind. The mind/body connection is not a one way avenue, rather, it is a bi-directional pathway through which our thoughts, emotions, behaviours, senses and nervous system interact back and forth all of the time to form our experiencing in any given moment.
Quite often in therapy and counselling there is an element of working on building capacity to feel one’s feelings. Sometimes if a client shares an emotion they are experiencing I might ask, when appropriate, “how do you know you are feeling that emotion?”. We will then explore together the felt physical experience of the emotion together. This is often referred to in therapy as somatic or body work, it can be extremely helpful in some ways but can also be harmful if a practitioner is not trained to do so or does so without the knowledge to support the practice.
We regularly refer to how we are feeling our feelings without naming specific emotions in our day to day lives. At a funeral someone might say “I have a lump in my throat” and anyone hearing that will know they are probably feeling grief, pain, despair or sadness, for example. A person might say they have “butterflies” in their stomach before a test or while doing something outside of their comfort zone; most people know they mean they are feeling fear, excitement or nerves without having to name the emotion specifically. To take time to pay attention to how one feels in one’s body can be a supportive way to honour oneself. Combine that noticing of the body with naming what emotion the feeling might be and it can be a powerful tool. It can create a space in which a person can identify their ‘butterflies’ for example, followed by naming excitement and then choosing how to respond in the moment based on that mind/body information.
At the beginning of this article I reference my gut instinct, this is often how we refer to what I am writing about. A felt and deeply known sense of what is the right thing to do or say that is in our awareness but not tangible. In unsafe situations it is usually the gut instinct that will prompt a person to walk away, run, fight or even shut down if none of those options are available: A completely normal way that our mind and body works as intended and can keep us safe when an experience may be too much for us to handle. The human version of a safety net or an alarm system so to speak.
Research around the effect of emotion and the science of our brains finds that emotions are connected to our evolutionary motivation system. Emotions signal how we are reading the environment and they are designed to mobilise and drive an adaptive behavioural response. Emotions are not designed for us to slow down and take time to experience how they feel in mind and body. Further, society is not geared toward the feeling of feelings or allowing time to do so. One can be feeling a lump in their throat on a Saturday at a funeral and expected to be productive back at the office the following Monday. As a result, many people have learned how to not feel feelings, as they may feel too big or not ok. This can result in grinning and bearing it, ‘coping’ with the crutch of too much alcohol or avoiding situations completely, to name a few ways of ‘managing’ emotions.
As the holiday season is nearly upon us it could be useful to consider slowing down and taking note of what you are feeling. Checking in on your gut instinct. Trusting that your body and mind have been designed in a way that will keep you safe. If a person, place or situation does not feel right, then it likely feels that way for a very good reason. This can helpful to navigate a joyful yet challenging time of year in a way that trusts and respects oneself. With that said, for many reasons, it is quite often a normal experience for one to find it hard to come in contact with their gut instinct or have any awareness of it at all in fact. Therapy and counselling is a place in which a person can rediscover their gut instinct, feel their feelings and explore the inherent safety of inhabiting their fullness as a person, feelings and all. Deb Dana, a social worker and author on befriending one’s nervous system, writes that “It’s important to know whether our responses are coming from the past or are grounded in the present”. Wise advice that I take onboard at this time of year. I know when I smell mulled wine this year, I will smile and look forward to enjoying a glass. I will also be conscious of my senses and my felt experience. I know grief will also be present in the moment and, through therapy and counselling, I have learned that that’s ok too.
For more information on Leo’s services, phone: 085 1300573
email: info@leomuckley.com
web: www.leomuckley.com
@leomuckleypsychotherapy
