What do feel? Where in your body are you carrying your emotions?
Many of our patterns are learned behaviors that have helped us get our needs met. Maybe they were behaviors that were better suited for a different environment (like our childhoods), or maybe they have helped us get our needs met a little bit but not in the best or most fulfilling way.
First, it helps to know what our needs are so we can connect them to our patterns/behaviors, and our needs reveal themselves in our feelings.
Iâm a major intellectualizer of my feelings. I can articulate the problems and my motivations and many of the root causes of those problems, but then my therapist would ask âHow are you feeling right now?â and Iâd have no idea. I would have to *think* about it rather than sit with my body and feel it.
Learning to check in with myself helps me to get a clearer picture of what I need. That might start with my physical sensations. Am I tired and need rest? Am I hungry and need food? It can also be about naming emotions. Am I anxious and reassurance? Am I lonely and need connection? Am I feeling overwhelmed and need space?
Donât talk yourself out of what youâre feeling. Not all feelings are capital-T true, especially as they relate to the external world, but all feelings contain truths to what you need and can bring you closer to taking new and potentially healthier actions.
Nov 28, 2024
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This might be an autism/delayed emotional processing specific rec, but I was often told I overthink things and for a long time I thought I didnât have feelings like everyone else, just lots of thoughts. I would spend so much time and energy trying to figure out what was a thought and what was a feeling until my therapist just said âwhat if I say that it doesnât matter and the difference is unimportant or non-existent for you?â I canât tell you how much that changed my life! Thoughts like âthis is something that is upsettingâ would cause me such confusion because I didnât feel the upset so I felt I didnât deserve to address it. But realising that for me recognising that something is upsetting on an intellectual level is how I first realise itâs upsetting me, and it might be days or months or years until I realise how it was emotionally affecting me. So acting, in the moment, as if I can feel the upset (confronting people about things, changing the situation, wallowing, giving myself time etc) is both allowed and means I can process things so i dont only feel them later or realise how they were negatively impacting me. the modern day splitting of thought and feeling into separate worlds is sometimes useless or damaging!
Jul 17, 2024
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in my saturn return and im feeling everything more intensely than ever before. this may be obvious but, something that helps me lately is pausing when an intense feeling happens and breaking it down as much as I can/my mind + body allow me to.
example: i'm not as good as I used to be at making art.
things I ask myself:
-Who told you that?
-How do you know this is true?
-How does that feel in your body? Do we just need to feel it right now, that's okay if so!
-Is it something we can process right now or should we circle back to this when we have more mental space to do so?
-What would make this statement false in this moment?
-What is the emotionless truth underneath this statement? What's the desire? What's the conflict?
-What makes me "good at making art now?"
-What am I referring to when this statement comes up?
-Did social media contribute to this thought?
etc etc
It's a simple concept, but it's been really helpful for me in realizing that so many of my thoughts are not my own and are on auto pilot. But, How I digest these thoughts is in my controlâ€ïž
6d ago
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Wow, I find this quite fascinating.
"For Seth Kopald, parts work was key to taming his anxiety, as he began to recognize that it stemmed from fears of feeling unloved in childhood.
With IFS, he could now acknowledge the hurt child within, and begin to unburden from the pain and shame.
âThereâs a big difference between, âI am the anxiety and fear versus I am here with the fear, Iâm here with the anxiety,ââ he says. And in that realization his natural state of âconfidence, courage and compassionâ resurfaced. âIt's almost like I have a new operating system now,â Kopald says.
So, if youâre dealing with stress â around relationships, tragedy, or any life challenge â you may want to learn more about parts work."
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/25/nx-s1-5055753/parts-work-therapy-internal-family-systems-anxiety
Oct 27, 2024
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âWe live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. Itâs easy to say âItâs not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.â Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.â
â Fred Rogers
4d ago
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The guy got my attention with, âHey, I like your shoes.â Just like that, he had me. We talked about where I bought the shoes and how I used to work in the shoe industry. He used to work in the beer industry but had recently become independently wealthy because of an investment opportunity he started with a few of his friends.
âYou get to be your own boss,â he told me. Your boot could be on your own neck. Weâre back to the topic of shoes.
He told me itâs a small investment to get started but things are really taking off and I could get in on the ground floor. I could quit my job. Work for myself. Had I ever considered doing something like that?
âNo,â I said with a shrug. I walked away with my jar of peanut butter. I canât remember if it was creamy or crunchy. Probably crunchy.
Nice guy!
Feb 25, 2025
I havenât been on Twitter for years and hardly touch FB, but I had been an active user on Instagram since 2012. I really like taking and sharing photos, and that had always been a fun place to do it.
No more.
With the changes the content moderation changes theyâre making, leaving LGBTQ+ folks vulnerable to be targeted; their rolling back of DEI programs; their willing participation in far-right rhetoric and politics; itâs all too much and Iâm out.
As if Metaâs platform hadnât already been increasingly enshittified, this was the final straw to announce how much worse it will get.
And you know what? It feels freeing. Better to leave it behind and find new platforms to connect with people.
Jan 22, 2025