Body-First Healing Podcast

How to Feel a Feeling: The 5 Steps of SIBAM for Nervous System Regulation

• Britt Piper • Episode 40

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Most of us were never actually taught how to feel a feeling. We were taught how to override it, rationalize it, minimize it, or move past it as quickly as possible. But what we suppress, the body will later express. What we resist will persist. In this episode, Britt breaks down one of the most foundational somatic tools for emotional processing: SIBAM. She explains why suppressing emotions can keep the nervous system stuck in a stress response cycle, why feelings are not the same as emotions, and how the body already knows how to process what the mind often interrupts. Britt walks through the five channels of SIBAM — sensation, image, behavior, affect, and meaning — and shares how each one can help you move through feelings in a gentler, more tolerable way. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by emotion, disconnected from your body, or unsure how to actually process what you feel, this episode offers a practical body-first framework to begin. 


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Welcome to the Body First Healing Podcast. I'm Britt Piper, Survivor Turn Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Aut. If you feel stuck in old patterns, overwhelmed by your emotions, or disconnected from yourself, you're in the right place. Each week, I'll share practical somatic tools, personal stories, and conversations to support you in building a more regulated and embodied life. Because you can't talk your way through healing, you have to feel your way through. Together, we'll explore what it means to come back to yourself and create a life that feels safe enough to fully live in. I am so glad that you're here. One of the most common questions that I receive as a somatic practitioner, soma meaning body-oriented, is how do I feel a feeling in my body?

Why Is Feeling A Feeling Important?

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So, first of all, why is feeling a feeling important? It's important because what we suppress, the body will later express. What we resist will just persist. We are all emotional creatures. We all have what we call an emotional brain. And our emotional brain is known as our mammalian brain, it's our limbic system, and it's the midbrain. Now, when we suppress or avoid emotion or feeling, what often happens in that process is that our human thinking brain is interrupting the emotional process. Our human brain will conceptualize or intellectualize that it's not okay to feel that anger. It's not okay to express that fear or anxiety. It's not okay to be worried right now or to show vulnerability or weakness. We judge and rationalize and talk ourselves out of our feelings all the time. But what happens is, first of all, those emotions, those feelings and the sensations that live within the emotional and the reptilian brain, this is where the nervous system operates from. When the nervous system goes into a state of fight, it operates from the subcortical part of the brain, the emotional mammalian brain and the reptilian survival brain. The language here is emotion, feeling, and sensation. And so when we go into a fight response, our nervous system inundates our body with the mobilizing hormones of adrenaline and cortisol. We feel certain sensations. Our body has certain impulses to tense. Our muscles contract, our posture goes up, our pupils dilate, we feel heat within our fingers, within our neck. There's tension in the jaw. There's a whole biological and physiological response that happens. Right? This is the adrenaline and cortisol that is mobilizing us into a survival state of fight. Now, with that feeling comes the sensation, but also comes an emotion. Maybe it's anger, maybe it's frustration, maybe it's bitterness, maybe it's resentment. And that anger always, always has a purpose. That nervous system response always has a purpose. Now, when we don't allow ourselves or allow our nervous system to experience the emotion sensation and feeling of that response, then what happens is our nervous system gets stuck with that adrenaline and cortisol within our body and physiology. And our nervous system becomes stuck in what we call the stress response cycle. So now we're stuck with these fight hormones in us. And this is how we often turn into someone that we don't recognize, right? Because we have all this stuck in stored fight energy, then we start getting angry at everyone around us. We start to get angry at our kids, at our partner, at the world, and we don't recognize why. And the reason was is because we didn't allow our nervous system to complete that experience back then. We didn't allow ourselves to feel that feeling. Now it's important to note that our feelings can be processed and metabolized through the body and through our physiology in less than 90 seconds. However, that 90 seconds to some of us can feel like an eternity. It can feel life-threatening, just in the same way that our digestive system knows how to digest food without our thinking brain or without our conscious effort. Our body and our nervous system, our muscles, our viscera, our fascia, it also knows how to digest, metabolize, and process through feelings and emotions and sensations as well. It's just that we often interrupt that process by conceptualizing and interrupting and disrupting the completion of that feeling. And because we often haven't been taught how to be with our feelings or we've been judged, shamed, blamed, or punished for our feelings, like when we were kids, then we might have this belief that it's not okay to express them. But unless we express them, they will just still sit within our system, which creates a chronic environment for that is a breeding ground for mental, physical, and chronic health issues in adulthood. So processing our feelings is the first step to nervous system regulation, to living a life where we can be with our feelings, we can move through the waves of it and come back through that threat response cycle and back to a place of regulation, which is where we're in a place of homeostasis, of calm, of presence, and of restoration. Now, a feeling is different than an emotion. And oftentimes I think that people assume that they're the same, but they're not. So in our lesson, I'm going to walk you

Five Steps Of How To Feel A Feeling

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through five steps of how to feel a feeling. This is something that we call sybam. Saibam is a common foundational term that we use in the somatic space to explore our feelings. So first let's start with sensation. As you feel a feeling, we first want to start to bring an awareness to a sensation. So what sensations do you notice in your body as you're feeling something? This could be temperature, it could be weight, it could be pressure, it could be within your muscles, your viscera. What do you notice inside your body? And we call this proprioception. So maybe it's that you notice that there is heat in your chest. Maybe it's that you notice that there's constriction. Maybe you're noticing that your heart is fluttering or that it feels calm. Maybe you notice that your stomach has butterflies. Maybe you notice that your feet and your legs feel numb or that they feel heavy. Temperature-wise, maybe there's a coolness in your fingertips or in your toes, oftentimes with emotions like anger or feelings like anger. We'll feel things like heat in our neck. Maybe it's tension. Okay, so first noticing on the map of PsyBAM, what are the sensations that you're experiencing right now in this moment? Now, the second channel of PsyBAM is image. Image is a memory or a visualization that comes to mind as you feel a feeling. Sometimes our feelings can feel so overwhelming, but what can be supportive is having a visualization or an image or a memory that helps us to process that feeling. For instance, if we feel tears coming on, but they're not coming out, perhaps we can imagine the image of a fire hydrant or a waterfall. And as we imagine that fire hydrant or that waterfall allowing the water to come out, perhaps the tears will actually follow. Image can also be a memory. So maybe as we're feeling the feelings of warmness, of openness, of peace, of serenity, of maybe the emotions of happiness or gratitude, maybe an image comes up of someone that we love or a memory from the past or a place that we've been. Image can help us to process our feelings in a more supportive way. Then next is behavior. Behavior can often be thought of as an impulse. Okay. As a feeling comes up, let's say that you notice the sensations of heat and you believe that the emotion that you're feeling is maybe anger or frustration. Through the behavior channel of Psy BAM, you can lean into the impulse or the behavior that your body wants to process. So here you can simply ask the question Is there something that my body wants to do right now? And maybe if anger is present, maybe it's actually just tightening your fists, right? Maybe it's setting a boundary and saying, No, I'm not okay with that. Maybe it's walking away. Maybe it's grunting. Right. Maybe it is pushing something out of the way. There's so many different ways that through our behavior or the impulse of the body and the nervous system through the combination of our viscera, our muscles, and our fascia, that our nervous system can express what it needs to. Right. When we suppress our feelings, they get stuck in us. When we express them, then we can discharge all of the adrenaline and the cortisol that comes along with those nervous system responses. Now the next element of cy BAM and feeling a feeling is your affect. And affect means emotion. Right. So as you start to explore the feelings, right? Something's coming up for you. You're not sure what the emotion is yet. But maybe you can notice the sensation, you can notice the tingling, you can notice the butterflies. The question you can ask is what is this emotion? Is this anxiety? Or is this excitement? Right? Is this panic and worry? Or is it exhilaration? Right? Is it curiosity? What is coming up for you? And using something like an emotion wheel, an emotion sensation wheel can help you to start to learn the language of emotion. But remember, feeling is not always just emotion. It's all of these elements of cybam. The last channel of cybam that you can use to process your feelings is the M in Psy BAM, which is meaning. And meaning is oftentimes where a lot of us initially go. It's our way of almost conceptualizing our feelings or intellectualizing our feelings or getting out of the experience of our feelings. So a lot of us will detach from sensation, we'll detach from the emotion and go straight into the meaning. However, it can also be supportive. So after you've started to explore the other elements of PsyBam, you can bring it back around to meaning. And you can ask as I notice this anger, right? As I notice the affect of emotion, as I notice this impulse and behavior to want to set a boundary, as I notice the sensation of heat rising in my chest and the heat and the tension in my jaw. And as I imagine maybe this fire within, right? Or I imagine with this anger that there's a bear, a mama bear who's really trying to stand in her power, then what meaning can I make of that? Maybe the meaning is it's important for me to set this boundary right now. I deserve to set a boundary. I deserve to advocate for myself. I deserve to advocate for my wants and my needs. So instead of conceptualizing, instead of interrupting the natural process of moving through a feeling, of moving through that process, how can we welcome in that feeling in a way that feels more tolerable and more gentle? So maybe it's not going straight into the emotion. Maybe it's just being with the sensation for a minute. Maybe it's just being with an image for a moment. Maybe it's just noticing the impulse. Maybe it's just noticing the affect or emotion, or maybe it's just starting with the meaning. So which of these channels feel stronger for you? I know that for my system, my system really, really appreciates and leans into image. I am big on imagery, I'm big on visualization. So often when I feel a feeling, there's often some kind of symbol or an image that comes up. I'm imagining right now that as I'm feeling this gratitude, you know, I might imagine like nature or being outside in the mountains, right? And that brings so much peace and solitude and gratitude for me. Right. So I'm big on imagery, but you, you might be big on sensation. You might be big on the behavior impulse, on the affect channel or meaning. So starting to learn the language of your own body, your own nervous system is going to help you to process feelings better. So again, just as a reminder, feeling your feelings is not always about emotions. There are lots of different avenues that you can take to start to process those so that you can regulate your nervous system so that you can come back to a state of regulation and you can move through. Thank you so much for tuning into the Body First Healing podcast. If this episode resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you subscribed, left a review, or shared it with someone that you love. I'll see you back here next week. And until then, be gentle with yourself. You're doing the best you can with what you have, and that is more than enough. Just a quick note this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Always consult a qualified provider for personal support.