wtf does 'feel your feelings' even mean? a feeling is just a thought that won't stop giving you a tummy ache. if i could stop feeling my feelings that'd be fuckin ace.
@enkiv2 I'm probably brainrotten due to Gendlin's *Focusing*, but I totally buy into the view that the therapeutic benefits from "feeling your feelings" are derived from a simple process for interfacing with your body-mind using subconsciously-provided symbols, imagery, or "handles." There's a definite and distinctive release your body-mind can achieve at the end of the steps.
No need for mysterious Buddhist metaphysics in my humble opinion.
Like dream imagery? Or are you using symbol here as equivalent to signal?
I think I'm missing a lot of context for this, whereas buddhist metaphysics just makes intuitive sense for the most part (at least western spins on it like that in MCTB).
I've had people (largely from the Gurdjieff tradition) say that "feel your feelings" is largely about being consciously aware of and attentive to them. This is reasonable but not so applicable to me: if I notice I'm having a feeling, I'm immediately paying attention to it so I can analyze what it is and how to make it stop (which usually involves changing something in the environment, sometimes means fomenting political revolution, but often involves doing something that I literally don't have the power to do).
@enkiv2 It's probably unfair of me to boil down the Gendlin approach, so check out the actual documentation on this for independent verification.
The "focusing" method basically moves in two stages: in the first stage you notice some body-feeling. It's best to think about a body-feeling as something that could appear in your awareness primarily as emotion, or primarily as a bodily ache or tension, but in the Gendlin line of thinking both are fundamentally connected.
@enkiv2 In the second stage you basically use an relaxed and introspective state of mind to observe the body-feeling, see if you can voluntarily exacerbate it by a small margin, and then propose the following question to yourself: "What is so X about Y?" In this phrase, X should be the body-feeling and Y should be the explicit situation as you understand it.
Your subconscious should provide an image, word, memory, etc. in your imagination. This is your "handle."
@enkiv2 Then you validate the handle by observing the body-feeling again and seeing if it's semi-coupled with the handle. Partial hits count, though you may need to "go fish" and search for different handles until one is suitably well validated by your body-feeling.
Sometimes this validation is sufficient to achieve the "body shift" or yum-like feeling to signal the end. Other times you need to actually do some introspection using the handle. Your introspection should be validated by body-shift
@enkiv2 Then you try to hold onto whatever ache or tension that you feel with the anger. Let's say your neck is tight and your jaw is clenched. Then with a relaxed and introspective frame of mind you can ask yourself, "What's so jaw-clenchy about my taxes?" And if you hold that question and pay attention to your imagination for a minute, you might get a flash of some strange memory, like playing at an arcade as a kid. Then you validate the arcade memory by comparing it to the jaw clench.
@enkiv2 It might be that this imagery seems like a distraction, like it's basically irrelevant to the feeling you're trying to focus on. In that case you need to ask yourself the question again and await another handle from the unconscious body-mind. But let's say that the jaw clench and the arcade memory seem to intensify or focus each other in some way, and that when you think about the arcade memory you're able to intensify the jaw-clenching anger. This proves that you have a handle.
@enkiv2 Then you can think about the similarities between paying your taxes and going to the arcade as a kid. Maybe you discover that in both situations you had a rush of confusion leading to a frustrated spite about being ripped off. If you feel like you've found "an answer" or some insight about the handle, you pay attention to your clenched jaw again and reflect on that answer. The feeling of successful validation is usually a relaxing breath and an innate sense of clearing / unblocking.
@enkiv2 So let's say hypothetically that you know that *doing your taxes* is one of those areas where you can sense that something is a bit /off/ and you probably should do some "feeling your feelings" stuff. You know at some level that you're mad and upset about *doing your taxes,* but you don't know how exactly you're supposed to be "feeling your feelings" other than getting mad about taxes again.
In this scenario, you'd need to catch yourself feeling the anger inside your body at some point.