Things I want my kids to know

As I think I may have mentioned before: I am actually not particularly good at being aware of my own feelings all of the time.

Good for a therapist, right?

When I am carrying around some anxiety, stress or tension, it might take me a while to actually acknowledge or notice it. If you were to ask me how I am feeling, I will generally take a pause, before saying something like “Fine!” or “Good thanks!”

I wouldn’t be lying to you, I just really wouldn’t clock that there was much there.

However, if you were to ask me: “How’s your body feeling?” Then you might get a different answer.

“Ah, yes. My shoulders are tense and my stomach is churning a bit, now that you mention it.”

Once I’ve clocked that there is some tension, I will be able to work out what it is about. Then I can try to do something about it.

What’s going on here is: I find it hard to put my finger on my emotions if I just try and do that outright, but I find it much easier to recognise what’s going on in my body and go from there.

I wanted to talk about this because this isn’t particularly unusual, and knowing this about yourself can be really useful. Often in therapy content such as mine, we will talk about the benefits of emotional awareness, but that doesn’t always mean immediately being able to have good words for your emotional state, sometimes it means paying attention to your body.

Notice some tension in your shoulders or forehead? Stomach churning? Feeling fidgety? Maybe that’s stress or anxiety. Or maybe it’s guilt. Tension can come when you are angry too. Feeling heavy or deflated? Maybe you are feeling sad or defeated.

I think most people find this process useful, but it is particularly useful for those who find it hard to identify their emotions or little shifts in how they feel. That can happen for a few reasons.

One reason this might happen is if you feel anxious or tense pretty much all the time. If you live your life with a constant buzzing baseline of anxiety, then actually you are likely to only really think of it as noteworthy when it gets really bad. So, if someone were to ask you how you are doing, you are likely to say that you are fine, because in the grand scheme of things, you will feel that this is true. However, when you are really trying to understand your anxiety so that you can do something about it, then not being able to tell when that baseline is there, even if it is a 2/10 anxiety level, means that you won’t ever get to the bottom of it.

Actually, asking yourself what’s going on in your body might be a good way of helping yourself to notice even small changes, which might help you get to know your anxiety and what is going on.

Another reason you might find it hard to identify emotion is if you were taught that emotions are dangerous, unacceptable or a sign of weakness. If there is something in your history that taught you any of these things, then actually you might find it difficult to identify your emotions because you never really got a chance to practice, and instead you learned to just squash them down and push on. Sitting and trying to name the way you feel might feel uncomfortable, self-indulgent or – for want of a better word – icky. You might also really struggle to actually know what the emotions are. Starting with physical feelings in your body can be really useful if this is going on for you. Noticing when you feel tense, when you feel yourself clenching your jaw or feel like your heart is heavy. Those are the first steps to understanding how you feel, being able to spot it in the moment, and being able to do something useful with it.

So, that is my challenge for you this week: practice paying attention to your body, and see what you notice.

I’ll start by trying to loosen up my shoulders a bit.

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Thanks for reading. Until next week,

Ted

P.S. It also works with emotions we think of as positive too. Your body feels different when you are excited, when you feel at peace, or when you feel hopeful.