Eyewitness to Therapy
I am a Gestalt psychologist and therapist. In this podcast, I conduct real-life therapy sessions with individuals who volunteer to experience a taste of Gestalt therapy. The purpose of Gestalt therapy is to transform your experience of living, helping you to clear up the situations and emotions you are currently dealing with.
Eyewitness to Therapy
All Things Feelings: What Exactly ARE Feelings?
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What if your feelings are not just reactions but essential guides to your emotional well-being? Join us on Eyewitness to Therapy, where we unpack the intricate world of emotions and feelings. This episode reveals how our feelings are immediate, fluid, and shaped by our thoughts and contexts. We explore why blaming external circumstances for our emotions might be counterproductive and emphasize the importance of acknowledging and accepting our internal experiences. Learn about the nuanced differences between feeling, expressing, sharing, and processing emotions, and discover how relationships uniquely influence our emotional landscape.
Taking responsibility for your emotions is a cornerstone of healing, and we’ll show you how. This chapter guides you through practical steps to identify and accept your current feelings, fostering both personal growth and emotional freedom. We also discuss common avoidance behaviors and the significance of relationships in shaping our emotional experiences. Concluding with a heartfelt message and an invitation to participate in future interviews, this episode equips you with profound insights and actionable tools to navigate your emotional life with greater awareness and responsibility. Tune in for a journey towards emotional well-being and inner peace.
Hello and welcome to the Eyewitness to Therapy, the one-of-a-kind podcast that focuses on a real-life therapy situation. I'm your host, court Curtis, psychologist and therapist, passionate about bringing you into an immersive experience of self-awareness through therapy. In each episode, we dive deep into the struggles our guests face and guide them on a journey of self-discovery and resolution. As your dedicated therapist, my purpose is to create a safe space where you can openly share and address your issues. We'll explore the power of the present moment in resolving your concerns, knowing that the past is completely over and the future is never yet. The past is completely over and the future is never yet. The key to healing lies in awareness, in being witness to your consciousness, and that's precisely what we'll uncover together in every episode of Eyewitness to Therapy. So join us as we navigate the transformative power of therapy and self-awareness. Welcome to this episode of Eyewitness to Therapy. Today, we are going to talk about feelings.
Speaker 1:Feelings what exactly are feelings? What is the nature of feelings? A feeling is an inner reaction to a particular person, place or situation. It can also be a reaction to a thought or a memory. If something unpleasant has occurred in the past, then remembering that event may evoke a number of different feelings. This inner reaction has certain properties. There are thoughts, body sensations and expressions of the faith.
Speaker 1:So let's first look at certain properties of feelings. Feelings are immediate, they are in the moment. Feelings are fluid. They change on a dime. Feelings are contextual what you feel in one situation or relationship is different from what you feel in another. Feelings and thoughts are two sides of the same coin, a singular experience.
Speaker 1:When I say I think something, I am also feeling something, but I don't often express both sides. One always feels what one feels. Sometimes there are no adequate words for feelings. Our emotional vocabulary is generally very limited. When someone asks me how I feel, I will generally say good or not, so good or fine. Feelings also have an intensity to them and are distinct from emotions, which we generally think of as being a display of feelings. I can feel sad or I can cry, I can feel angry or I can get angry and call you names.
Speaker 1:I am the producer of my feelings and I am also the feeler of my feelings. No one can feel my feelings but me, obviously, and nothing in the world causes my feelings, although it appears that way. My feelings show up just as they do, but events don't cause me to feel the way I do. Instead, my feelings are my response to what happens. If someone dies and I feel sad, I don't say that person's death caused my sadness. My sadness is my response to that person's death. Being the producer of my feelings is the same as saying I'm responsible for my feelings. Responsibility does not mean blame or fault. Responsibility means the ability to respond. I own my feelings. I produce the feelings that I feel and I feel the feelings that I produce for however long I feel them.
Speaker 1:Asking the question why do I feel the way I feel? Is mostly a useless question, a subtle way of invalidating or judging the feeling. It is looking for the cause or the explanation of the feeling somewhere in the past. Cause of feelings is always in the present, the only time that exists. Asking why I feel the way I feel is, at best, an intellectual exercise that leads to nowhere. It doesn't change the feelings. I'm just left with a reason for the feelings. Trying to explain my feelings is a subtle way of avoiding feelings. Saying I feel this way because often puts the cause of my feelings onto some external circumstance or onto another person. You make me feel this way or that makes me so angry, and so on. The payoff is that I get to blame you or the circumstances for the feelings that I feel, instead of explaining, take responsibility by saying I'm the producer of this feeling in me or I am responsible for this feeling.
Speaker 1:As human beings, we have many different ways of dealing with our feelings, but the most fundamental way that we deal with our feelings is to conceal them from others and even from ourselves. We suppress them, deny them, drink over them, drug over them, eat over them, exercise over them or simply try to pretend they don't exist. All of these ways of dealing with our feelings reflect a basic attitude that it is not okay to feel what we feel. So now we must try to escape our feeling. Our lives consist of various relationships, such as family, friends and work. Relationships are a series of encounters that have various purposes, but the overriding purpose of all relationships is to relate, which you already do in the way that you do it. When you encounter someone, you relate to them. There is an exchange of energy. All feelings emerge within the context of a here and now encounter. Whether the feelings are expressed or not, you feel something before, during and after an encounter Feeling feelings, expressing feelings.
Speaker 1:Sharing feelings and processing feelings are distinct processes. Feeling my feelings is feeling the sensations in my body in all its detail. It is all an internal process. Expressing feelings arises within the context of an encounter with another human being and is telling another or showing another how I feel about something. Sharing feelings is sharing the reality of what I'm experiencing in any given moment and arises out of self-awareness. The intention behind sharing feelings is to be known by another and not with any intention to change or influence. Sharing feelings is acknowledging my inner state. Sharing feelings is allowing feelings to stand on their own. Sharing feelings is very simple and most often can be expressed in a word or a sentence. Sharing feelings is like taking a snapshot of emotion. Sometimes there are no adequate words to express feelings, except perhaps these feelings or this feeling.
Speaker 1:Processing feelings is one of the goals of therapy. It is usually the persistent feelings that create unhappiness and pain. Processing feelings is going into the feelings. It is a process of naming the feelings and describing the feelings in the here and now, feeling the feelings in the body and allowing the feelings to be the way they are. When you describe something, you are in the moment, seeing and hearing something as it is. You're not doing anything with the object of description. You're not trying to change it into something as it is. You're not doing anything with the object of description. You're not trying to change it into something that it's not. You're trying to see it from as many different vantage points as possible so that you can make as full a description as possible. To describe something requires you to take the role of an observer. As you observe the feelings, you are at the same time dissolving the feelings into nothingness. Persistent feelings are unfinished feelings. The psychological term is unfinished emotional business or unfinished situation.
Speaker 1:The way out of persistent feelings is to take responsibility for how and what I feel. I am responsible for my feelings means that I own my feelings and have a say-so about my feelings. There are many ways to finish a feeling, but the essential element is to take responsibility for feeling. The way I feel, the way we keep a feeling going, is to judge our feelings. Why am I feeling this way? Condemn our feelings. I'm bad for feeling this way. Pathologize our feelings. There's something wrong with me for feeling this way or try to escape our feelings. I can't stand feeling this way. When we judge, condemn, pathologize or try to escape from feelings, we turn to addictions as a way to deal with the feelings. We do just about everything imaginable except to feel our feelings. So how does one deal with persistent emotions? That's where we want to look at the link between thoughts and emotions.
Speaker 1:Judging one's emotions is what keeps emotions persisting. Emotions are like water. Judging creates a dam that serves to block the flow of emotion. The language of our inner world is not as clear as the language we have for objects and external events. Very few of us have ever been trained or encouraged in the language of feelings.
Speaker 1:As children, we knew feelings well and expressed our feelings spontaneously and creatively. Children are feeling creatures, but as we became socialized, the focus on feelings became less and less important For many of us. Feelings were often denigrated, even as it is today in our culture. We may have heard things like if you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about. Or don't you get angry with me, young man? We now live in a world of opinions. I think this, or I that I believe this, or I believe that this is what should be and this is what should not be. This is right, that's wrong, I'm right and you're wrong. You're to blame. It's your fault.
Speaker 1:We have one belief system pitted against another, while we often hear statements like you can't let your feelings control your actions. Consider this your feelings already do control your actions. The degree to which you do not acknowledge your feelings is the degree to which your feelings run your life. Asking the question how are you feeling is a different question than what are you feeling or how do you feel about something. Asking how are you feeling is often meant as an inquiry into your physical state. Asking what are you feeling is often meant as an inquiry into your emotional state. Asking how do you feel about something is often meant as an inquiry into whether you like something or not.
Speaker 1:Feelings are intuitive and metaphorical in nature. To say I don't have a good feeling about something is to acknowledge an intuition without necessarily relying on any particular facts. I feel like I want to explode is a metaphor and description of a feeling as I experience it. Saying I feel like I want to cry but I can't expresses that there is a part of me that wants to cry and another part that won't allow me. Feelings and emotions can be used as weapons of attack or manipulation against another. When I feel resentment, I can attack you with criticism and blame, but feelings can also be turned into behavior. That becomes an indirect way of expressing a feeling or a manipulation to get what I want. Children don't generally have the words to express feelings, so a tantrum can become their way of communicating a feeling to get what they want. Alternatively, the tantrum can be an expression of fighting back against something that the child feels powerless to influence.
Speaker 1:Generally, we do not allow feelings to stand on their own and instead project our feelings onto others and assume what the other feels. When I say I feel that you fill in the blank. I am telling you what I think you feel and what I think your intentions are, but I can never know what you actually think or feel unless you tell me there are no wrong feelings. Yes, there are unpleasant feelings, but that is just the problem. We don't want to feel our unpleasant feelings. We want to do something about our feelings. Instead of sitting with them, we will engage in mindless activities to avoid being with our feelings. Avoid being with our feelings. So what is EQ? Eq stands for emotional quotient and is the counterpart of IQ, the intelligence quotient. A person with a high EQ is a person who is able to be with their feelings.
Speaker 1:Feelings are energy. Emotions are energy in motion. That energy is given various names, like sadness, anger, resentment, hurt, or excitement and enthusiasm, but it is all energy that takes on form. Moods are distinct from feelings, but are often intertwined. Moods are like a general inner atmosphere or inner state of feeling that can be described in various metaphorical ways, such as with terms we use for weather I feel gloomy, cloudy, stormy. Moods can also be described in terms of elevation I feel high or I feel low or in terms of expansion I feel high or I feel low. Or in terms of expansion, I feel open or I feel closed. Or in terms of levels of enthusiasm I feel excited or I feel reticent.
Speaker 1:In therapy, taking responsibility for how you feel is an essential component of healing. If I am a victim of my feelings by saying I can't help the way I feel, I am stuck with the feelings forever. When I say I am responsible for this feeling, I declare that I have a say-so in how I feel. So, as we come to a close, here is a little exercise for you to try out right now. Begin a series of sentences that start with the words right now I'm feeling and then fill in the blank with a word or short phrase two or three times and then afterward ask this question could I accept this feeling just the way it is, just for now? Thank you for listening to this episode of Eyewitness to Therapy Sending peace, love and joy. Thank you for listening to this edition of Eyewitness to Therapy. If you, the listener, desire to be interviewed in a similar fashion as this one, feel free to contact me at courtcurtis at yahoocom. Peace, love and presence.
