Many of us come to therapy because of trouble feeling our feelings. We are blocked emotionally or creatively. Some of us may have trouble sleeping. Some may be suffering because of feelings of isolation or alienation, while others aren’t finding pleasure enough in sex. Whatever the nature of the complaint, as we delve beneath the surface, we will most likely find the fear of falling apart at its core.
Most of us weren’t taught how to give up control of ourselves. In fact, most of us have learned that giving up control of ourselves is wrong, or a bad thing to do, and we’re terrified of the very thought of it. Therefore, we invest a great amount of our energy into holding ourselves together, holding on to our feelings, and into controlling our impulses.
Some of us succeed so well we lose touch with ourselves-sometimes falling into depression and despair. Others among us partially succeed at holding everything in until we are swept up in a flood of emotion or an angry explosion. Some rebel against the very notion of control, raging all over the place, losing friends, marriage partners, jobs, and credibility.
We need to develop a capacity for those feelings we fear. We need to learn to sit with them and share them. One way to accomplish this is through psychotherapy. In a healthy therapeutic relationship we can create a safe container– a holding environment — in which we can begin to allow those feelings we fear most to come to the surface. In my own therapeutic experience, all I could do for a long time was talk-about myself and my life. But as I observed how my therapist listened to me without judgment or condemnation, I gradually began to allow the control I had always kept on my feelings to relax. Little by little I revealed my secrets. Little by little I stopped hiding and holding back my feelings. Instead of talking about my sadness, I wept. Instead of talking about my anger, allowed it to be seen. In the process, I discovered I could tolerate the intensity of my deepest hurts and not fly wildly and endlessly out of control as I had always feared I would. I did not disintegrate, nor was I destroyed. This was a truly amazing and freeing discovery.
The truth is, we protect ourselves from the depth of our hurt because it feels so enormous we fear we can’t survive it. As if it were a great, rabid animal, we look for ways to escape it. We may freeze and hold ourselves in stillness, anesthetizing ourselves, becoming so good at it that we live a half-life, feeling little or nothing at all. Some of us fight hurt off. We deny, deny, deny, striving to believe nothing’s there, but periodically losing the fight in an outburst of anger or sadness or both. Some of us run from it-using success, caretaking, busy-ness, distraction, addictive or compulsive behaviors including rage as avenues of escape. From this perspective, it’s easy to see how alcohol, drugs, food, as in over-eating or not eating, spending, gambling, and addictive sex can fit into the picture. An addiction often begins because a substance or activity can protect us from feeling our hurt.
When we learn to sit with deep feelings, we also discover what is me and what is not me. Consider this. When we are unable to own our deepest feelings, we don’t know who we are. When we don’t know who we are, we either can’t decide what we want and don’t want or we can’t express it. When we don’t know – or can’t express – what we want and don’t want, we have no boundaries and without even knowing we’re doing it, we give too much of ourselves away over and over again. Feeling feelings empowers us. Once we learn we can survive feeling the hurts we have dreaded for a lifetime, we come to see we can also survive negative reactions of those around us when we say, “Yes. I want this.” or “No. I don’t want that.’
Life changes when we develop the ability to sit with our feelings and communicate them to a trusted person. Whether we learn through a spiritual quest, psychotherapy, or through intensive energy work or bodywork with a skilled practitioner, this process involves (1) taking in support and caring from another person, (2) finding some calm and peace within, (3) accepting change and loss as a natural aspect of life, (4) learning to embrace each moment as if it were our last, and (5) establishing a connection with a power outside ourselves-having faith in a power greater than our own, to which we can turn for strength and guidance. This power has many names. You may call it Creator, Buddha, Jesus, Allah, Goddess, Shiva, Divine or Creative Source, Mother Earth, or Nature, or you may not give it any name at all.
We finally realize that, whatever paths we choose, this is a journey of the spirit. The energy needed to keep us from feeling our pain comes from our essence. This control diminishes our spirit. The hurts we numb, control and run from are lost parts of our souls. The shaman – who is both doctor and psychologist in indigenous cultures – performs a ritual called ‘soul retrieval’. She understands, through knowledge handed down from generation to generation, that a piece of the soul is lost when trauma occurs. She knows these pieces of the soul must be retrieved and restored in order for healing to happen.
In my years as a psychotherapist, I’ve found that combining therapy with another practice can be very powerful. When we add some other healing modality to psychotherapy-even to psychotherapy which includes the body and spirit as well as the mind-the journey becomes a little easier. It may not feel easier, but there is more support and opportunity to trust and feel. For instance, Reiki, acupressure, massage, reflexology, and cranialsacral therapy can help release feelings that are held at a cellular level. Yoga and meditation teach us to be still and experience thoughts, feelings and sensations as bubbles arising and dissolving in our awareness. Spiritual practices-ritual, prayer, chant, the labyrinth, retreats-encourage and support stillness and the belief that we are guided, blessed, and showered with grace, and teach that we can withstand whatever comes because we are not alone. Combining psychotherapy with at least one other modality also assures that our common fear of being left just as we begin to let go control-that we’ll be abandoned in some way by the therapist-doesn’t have the same power to frighten when we have other guides on whom we can rely.
> In closing, just a reminder that in choosing helpers and guides to feeling your feelings it is important to ascertain that they have done their own work around feeling their feelings. It isn’t prying to ask a practitioner what kind of therapeutic work he or she has done. You have a right to ask. After all, you need to know that your guide has been where you’re going.