Feelings and emotions

Photo by Phil Fiddes (CC BY 2.0)

Another level of communication, or expression, is our feelings and emotions.

How do you respond to your feelings when you are feeling them?  
Do you notice your feelings at all?  
Can you name them?
Do they make sense to you?  

Some feelings may be more comfortable to feel than others, such as happiness, or a feeling of love or being loved.  I find it quite easy to feel content, for example.  Other feelings, such as anger, sadness, or jealousy can often be harder to discern because we may believe that it isn’t ok to feel those things.  This can lead to a more general sense of feeling “upset” and maybe not even knowing why.  Paying attention to our feelings as they arise, by listening and honoring their message (their communication) to us can help guide us to getting to know ourselves better, from what we need, to what works for us, and what needs to be expressed.

The body has another level of communication that is more recently being understood and respected as a message of health.The aches and pains of our body can give us great insight into our physical needs.  For example, if you spend a day traveling by air or car and sitting for a long period of time in one place, the next day you might notice feeling some aches and tightness in the body from that lack of mobility the day before.  A natural response to this “information” would be to move around, maybe go for a walk or do some light stretching to give the body what it needs to feel good.  Discomfort in the body is more often a sign to pay attention to something that needs tweaking, rather than a sign we need to take some pain relievers and continue doing what we’ve been doing.