Most of us were never taught to feel.

Most of us were never actually taught how to feel.

Sure, we may have learned the names of feelings or emotions; Happy. Sad. Angry. Scared.

We may have been taught which emotions were acceptable to show and which ones made other people uncomfortable.

We might even have become very good at talking and thinking about how we feel.

But these are quite different from knowing how to actually be with an emotion while it is happening in our body.

What does fear feel like before the mind has created a story about it?

Where does anger begin before it becomes words, blame or an argument?

What happens in the body when grief arrives?

What happens to your breath when you're trying not to cry?

What happens in your belly when you want to say no, but you say yes instead?

What happens to your voice when you're worried that what you really want to say might disappoint someone?

What happens when joy, desire or excitement gets big enough that being fully seen in it starts to feel vulnerable too?

Our emotions aren't simply thoughts happening in our heads.

They are embodied experiences. Emotions. They are Energy in MOTION.

They affect our breathing, muscle tone, posture, facial expression, heart rate, attention, impulses and our sense of connection with the world around us.

And yet many of us have spent years learning how to move away from those sensations.

Sometimes deliberately. Often without even realising we're doing it.

We hold our breath. Tighten our jaw. Brace our belly. Keep ourselves busy. Scroll. Overthink. Intellectualise. Make a joke. Change the subject.

Reach for food, alcohol, work, exercise, substances, television or our phones.

We explain what happened rather than feeling what happened.

We become the person who is "fine."

Or we wait until the feeling becomes so enormous that it bursts through the strategies we've been using to contain it.

None of this means we've failed at emotions.

Many of these patterns were ways we learned to stay connected, belong, function, protect ourselves or simply get through something we didn't yet have the capacity or support to meet.

But over time, we can become very practised at managing ourselves and very unfamiliar with experiencing ourselves.

And there is a difference.

Because an emotion doesn't necessarily need to be solved.

Sometimes it needs to be noticed.

Sometimes it needs space.

Sometimes movement.

Sometimes sound.

Sometimes it needs a boundary.

Sometimes it needs us to leave, or stay.

Sometimes it just needs another human being to sit beside us while we feel it.

And sometimes it needs absolutely nothing from us except permission to exist.

This is where our relationship with the body becomes so important.

Because the body is often communicating long before we've consciously decided what we feel.

And it’s through listening to our body, that we build emotional intelligence. (which isnt the ability to quickly make uncomfortable emotions disappear)

And this where some words like regulation come in, moving energy, meeting your capacity and staying within your window of tolerance.

The question probably has been:

How quickly can I get out of this feeling?

Perhaps the question could be:

Can I remain in relationship with myself while this feeling is here?

Can I notice anger without becoming consumed by it?

Can I experience fear without automatically feeling like I’m under threat?

Can I feel sadness without immediately needing to find the positive?

Can I notice the impulse to say no before overriding it?

Can I experience pleasure without rushing past it?

Can I feel uncertainty without immediately needing an answer?

Can I recognise the moment I leave my own centre to accommodate somebody else?

This, to me, is a much deeper kind of emotional intelligence.

Not mastering our emotions.

Not controlling them.

Not endlessly analysing where they came from.

But developing enough relationship with our inner world that we have more choice in what happens next.

There is a space between feeling something and what we do with what we're feeling.

And that space can grow.

Through awareness.

Through breath.

Through movement.

Through expression.

Through being witnessed.

Through practising boundaries.

Through experiencing what it is like to remain connected to ourselves in the presence of another person.

Through discovering that an emotion can rise, change shape, move through us and become something else without us necessarily needing to suppress it or obey it.

And perhaps this is some of the work many of us were never taught.

Not how to be less emotional.

But how to become more intimate with our emotional world.

The goal isn’t to become better at controlling what we feel.

It's to become more capable of being with ourselves while we feel it.

If you are wanting something more from your life, and this resonates…. reach out.

Elyse