4 Steps to Feeling Your Feelings

Got a lot of feelings right now? Me too. Like...so many.

And you’ve probably heard therapists the world over say “feel your feelings” or “make space to feel” or “honor those emotions.” But what does all of that really MEAN?

It's important to make space to feel your emotions. If you don't, then they will make themselves known, and likely not at a moment of your choosing. Emotions aren't meant to be ignored and put away. They are there to spur us to do something and care for ourselves.

but HOW do you feel a feeling? Here's a quick guide:

1) Name it. Pull out an emotion wheel (google it) and find a few words for what you're feeling. It might be one emotion, it might be a bunch at once. There are no rules here. Find some feeling words! Anxious? Sad? Angry? Content? Excited? 

Here are some emotions grouped together that you might be feeling:

anger

rage

exasperation

irritation

envy

disgust

agitated

frustrated

annoyed

shocked

surprised

powerless

stunned

astounded

speechless

confused

disoriented

disillusioned

engaged

sad

disappointed

despairing

depressed

guilty

hurt

ashamed

grieving

lonely

happy

proud

content

satisfied

enthusiastic

optimistic

cheerful

delighted

amused

curious

anxious

nervous

insecure

terrified

overwhelmed

panicked

worried

dreadful

scared

2) Name how your body is feeling. Really feel those sensations, don't just think them. How your body is experiencing these emotions gives you a lot of information. Checking in with your somatic experience keeps your more connected to yourself and more able to take care. What do you feel? Tension in your chest? Heaviness in your belly? Tingling in your arms? Constricted breathing? 

Here are some body sensations you might notice:

tense

tight

tender

nauseous

sore

achy

constricted

bubbly

tingly

shaky

trembling

queasy

fluttery

electric

prickly

burning

radiating

congested

thick

dull

frozen

buzzy

heavy

cold

numb

hot

hollow

empty

knotty

warm

cool

airy

spacious

expansive

fluid

solid

floaty

cool

smooth

Approach all of this with the mindset of "this emotion is tolerable, and I don't have to get rid of it right now." That's it! You felt a thing!

After you've done this, you might want to do something about it. You might want to soothe the feeling or give yourself some care and compassion.

3) What thoughts are attached to this feeling? Our thoughts, the stories we tell ourselves about something, can exacerbate the feeling or calm it. Are your thoughts judging the emotion? Are you telling yourself the emotion must end RIGHT NOW? See if you can practice some self-compassion: "It makes sense that I am feeling X" or "it is okay to feel X". Removing judgement can make the emotion easier to tolerate. Ask if the thoughts accompanying that emotion are true, kind and useful. If they're not, try to generate a thought or two that is.

4) Ask yourself what the emotion is trying to communicate. It's not a pointless thing, it's trying to get you do move or do something to meet your needs. Ask, what do I need right now? Anxiety might mean it's time for a break. Sadness might mean it's time for connection. Anger might be time for self-expression (just examples). Ask what you need and do that thing.

How are you doing right now?

Online Counseling Tips for Clients and Therapists

Telehealth is a huge shift for most of us—clients and therapists alike. Here are som tips for you as a client during telehealth sessions:

• change your mindset: online therapy can be equally as helpful as in person sessions. It’s new, and might feel uncomfortable at first, but this doesn’t mean it won’t be useful to you.

• be as close to your internet router as possible to prevent connectivity issues

• find a private space with a closed door

• create a physical environment that feels safe and comfortable

• boundaries--share visually only what you want to share of your home, this can be a little or a lot. You might want your therapist to see your whole living room and meet your dog, or you might want to sit down in a nondescript corner to keep the boundaries more clear and separated. Up to you!

• close other open windows on your computer and put your phone away & on silent to minimize distraction

• put a post-it note over your face if it's distracting to see yourself

• talk with your therapist about what happens if you get disconnected

• know that it might feel different than in person, and that's okay

• get comfortable with silences, they are just like in office; you don't have to always fill space.

• bring up discomfort with the change, process with your therapist how it's impacting your experience

The tips for therapists are really similar, below are the ones that are additional or different:

• change your mindset: online therapy can be equally as helpful. Almost any therapy modality can be adapted to online sessions (I’m speaking from experience here—I’m a somatic therapist and online work for this can be challenging when I can’t see my client’s entire body, can’t feel their breath as I can in office, etc; but I have been able to find ways to adapt it to online. Anything is possible if we get creative).

• find a private space with a closed door, add a sound machine if you can, especially if you're at home

• create a physical environment that feels similar to your office. This can help with getting you into your procedural learning for “therapy session” and get into “therapist mode”. Honestly, I can’t do this if I’m in my PJs or sweatpants. I dress like I’m going to work (which is actually pretty casual), so that I feel as similar to in-person sessions as possible.

• boundaries--share visually only what you want to share of your home. It can be uncomfortable to bring our clients into our homes, even if virtually, because we work hard to “not bring the work home” with us. Figure out a way to set these physical or energetic boundaries with virtual sessions.

• call your clients' insurance to double check coverage. Most carriers have the same coverage for telehealth as in-person sessions, but some process the claims differently. Check with your clients’ carriers so that you can be clear with them about potential cost and coverage changes.

• make sure your clients know what happens if you get disconnected. My rule of thumb is to call them on their cell phone, troubleshoot video issues, and if we can’t resolve them we finish the session by phone. Talk with your clients about what they would prefer if you get disconnected.

• tell your client about what might feel different about online sessions, check in with them about all of the above. If you’re new to doing online sessions, be transparent about the fact that you’re adjusting to this new thing together.

• be ready to process attachment and relationship changes that might come up in session. Clients might feel less connected to you, less seen by you, or on the other side, they might feel TOO see by being on video, or might feel their space being intruded upon. Be mindful of this, name it if it comes up, and be ready to process it.

• give yourself longer breaks between sessions to move your body and to look away from a screen. Please take care of yourself! I’m finding that doing online sessions is more exhausting and my eyes get really tired. Time away from my screen and moving my body, along with longer breaks between sessions and less clients per day (when possible) has been really helpful.

I’d love to hear from you—either as a client or a therapist—how are you adjusting to online sessions? How is it feeling? What did I miss?

Interested in teletherapy during the pandemic? We are taking on new clients! Head to our contact page to reach out, let us know what you’re looking for, and we’ll fit you with one of our fantastic therapists.

4 Tips to Help You Stay Sane in a Scary World

Setting boundaries with the news is crucial. I can't tell you how many sessions I have a week about how stressful the world is, whether it's politics, climate change, COVID-19 or something else. Boundaries with information are necessary.

Two questions I lean on:

1) Do I already have this information? 

If no, then sure, keep reading. Gather information to get yourself informed. Track your level of anxious activation. The news will likely get you anxious, but notice the point at which you're not getting anything new out of it other than worry and fear. That's often the point you need to step away.

If yes, then do you need to gather more information? How is it serving me or those I care about to dig deeper? Maybe it does serve--you have a partner who is immunosuppressed and so you need more information about COVID-19, or you have an LGBT friend who will be directly impacted by policy decisions in the government. Yes, gather more information. Dig deeper, and again, track when your level of anxiety surpasses the point of the usefulness of the information.

2) Is this information I'm going to take action on? 

If no, then why are you gathering more? You might just be curious: cool. You might feel slightly soothed by having more data: great.

But, if you're reading the news and spinning yourself into worry: stop. Taking action on the information you take in is a great way to challenge worry. Donate to the cause. Vote. Talk to your friends about voting. Go wash your hands and figure out your workplace's policy about sick days. But after that...stop. Set some limits.

I understand that you feel you need to be informed. I know that you want to be a good citizen and neighbor. But sometimes, we become too fearful, too anxious and too worried to be able to take effective action. It's like worrying: it gives you a false sense of control. The more you read the more you feel in control. But constantly checking doesn't help. It actually can exacerbate worry. It gives you an instant dopamine hit...and then a flood of cortisol.

Two limits I and my clients have found helpful:

-set a certain number of times a day that you get to check the news (I only check twice--during breakfast and when I get home from work).

-set time limits (I only read for the amount of time I'm eating, and then for about 15 minutes at the end of the work day).

What have you found helpful to stay informed while also staying sane?

5 Ways to Cultivate Self-Love

Self-love is a game-changer.⁠ Your life radically changes when you start to care for yourself the way you care for those around you. And love is a verb, it comes through actions. You cultivate self-love when you show up for yourself, consistently and with compassion. It takes practice.

What I’ve noticed over time, is that the belief “I am unloveable” begins to shift to a belief that “I am loveable” when people consistently treat themselves as if the latter is true, even when it doesn’t feel that way.

I don't buy the bullshit that says "no one will love you until you love yourself"...because it's just not true. You will still be loved even if you don't love yourself, but that love will be harder to accept and savor. You might find yourself pushing love away, fearing that people will leave you or “find you out”. When you practice loving yourself, you’re more able to be present with the love other people are showing you.

Self-love can come in a lot of forms, but these are five tried and true ways that I know help develop self-love:⁠

1) 🖤Stop judging others.

What you're judging in them is something you reject about yourself, or it's just plain mean and feeding into focusing on the negative about yourself. Stop judging others and notice how much easier it is to be kind to yourself and feel connected in any situation.⁠ This is a practice I adopted several years ago, and it made massive shifts in how I looked at other people and myself.

2) 🕵️‍♀️Observe your inner critic.

Notice the mean shit she's saying to you daily! Would you say that to your best friend? Are those shame-y thoughts helping you get anywhere? NO.⁠

3) 💥Challenge those statements with something that is true, kind AND useful.

Yes, all three. True (because maybe you did fuck that thing up), but how can you say it in a way that is KIND and USEFUL at the same time? Not "you're such a failure, you really messed that up", but instead "that didn't go well, you made a few mistakes, here's how you can do better next time/learn from this". Way kinder.⁠

4) ❓Ask, "what do I feel right now?"

Isn't this how we so often show people we care? We want to know how they're feeling and what's going on in their lives. Get curious about your own experience, without so much judgement. It's amazing what can change just through asking yourself "what do I feel right now?⁠

5) 🌮Ask "what do I really need?"...and give that to yourself!

This is another way we show that we care. We support our loved ones, we try to meet their (reasonable) needs, we do what we can to SHOW UP for them.⁠

How can you show up and show love for yourself today??

Want to show yourself love by giving yourself the gift of therapy? Click here to schedule your complimentary consultation.

Attachment, Resilience and Trauma

Therapists asking about your childhood is a cliché. But…it’s cliché for a reason.

Your childhood has a massive impact on who you are as an adult. In my work as a trauma therapist, I know that your childhood experiences have a huge impact on stress resilience. People who had childhoods that fostered secure attachments (or adult relationship that facilitate an “earned secure” attachment style) are better able to recover from stress, and less likely to develop PTSD after a traumatic event.

Let’s back up. What do I mean by “attachment”? It basically means the way that you receive soothing and connection with your primary caregiver(s) as a child. The quality of these early attachment relationships to a large extent influence everything about you.

“Attachment is part of a 3-part motivational system of fear–attachment-exploration. Fear triggers attachment behaviors. The safe haven of secure attachment soothes the fear of the amygdala, and opens exploration….Exploration eventually bumps us into something that triggers fear again which shuts down exploration and triggers attachment behaviors again which soothe the fear again and open exploration cycle of safety-exploration again.” -Linda Graham

Because we have a need for regulation, and as a baby haven’t yet developed the structures to do this ourselves, we rely on our primary caregivers to help us regulate. This is what our attachment system does for us. Attuned attachment typically leads to a wider window of tolerance, while misattuned attachment typically leads to a narrower one.

If our early attachment relationships are safe and attuned, we develop the ability to trust, accurately assess fear and regulate emotions. We can move more easily between fear, attachment and exploration. When something stressful happens to a person with secure attachment, their fear/anxiety peaks, and then over time returns to baseline in the window of tolerance. This happens more quickly and easily for those with secure attachments.

However, if our early attachment relationships are injurious or traumatic, then we might get stuck in any part of the fear-attachment-exploration cycle. This depends on how our caregiver(s) responded to us when we sought soothing after fear, or when we craved exploration. We may become more likely to seek attachment in response to fear (anxious attachment style), or seek exploration in response to either fear or attachment (avoidant attachment style), or oscillate between both (disorganized attachment).

This has a huge impact on how we respond to stress.

With an insecure attachment style (anxious, avoidant or disorganized), the peak of anxiety/fear may be higher, last longer, and take more to return to baseline. In addition, that baseline may be higher than those with secure attachment as well—meaning anxiety without stressful events idles closer to the edge of the window of tolerance.

Because our early attachment relationships influence our ordinary stress resilience, they also influence resilience to traumatic stress.

Those with insecure attachment styles are more likely to develop PTSD after a trauma than those with a secure attachment.

[This DOES NOT MEAN that everything is predetermined. Our attachment systems are quite amenable to growth and change, as is our stress tolerance. This is simply more information about how our early childhood experiences shape our adult selves.]

About 20% of people who experience trauma go on to develop PTSD. There is not a ton of research on how to prevent the development of PTSD after trauma, but this information is an interesting piece of that puzzle. If we can help kids have more secure attachments, then it follows that less kids and adults will experience PTSD after a trauma.

(I know, it would be great if trauma just didn't happen...but we don’t have control over that. However…I'd also argue that less interpersonally caused trauma would happen if more of us had secure attachment...but that’s a post for another time.)

Attachment security being a resilience factor supports the theory that relational experiences are necessary for healing trauma: developing more secure attachments in and through therapy will help widen your window of tolerance, support your nervous system in becoming more adaptive and flexible, and provide new healing experiences.

Want to explore this with one of our therapists? Click here to schedule your free 20 minute consultation today!