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Understanding Ourselves

Take the ‘Feelings 101’

Would you like to understand your feelings better? Perhaps you have questions like;

  • Why do I always end up feeling this way?
  • Why won’t this feeling just ‘go away’?
  • Why should I feel like this now? I’ve been it some tough situations, and they were no problem to me.
  • What’s the point of feeling bad? Don’t I just need to ‘snap out of it’ or ‘pull myself together’?
  • Am I going mad? I didn’t used to respond like this.
  • Will I ever feel better? I feel so hopeless.
  • Will I ever feel better? No one can bring back such a special person. 

Take the Feelings 101

It may be that, back in our early family situations, ‘doing’ lots of feeling wasn’t especially welcome. And in many contemporary Western settings, bringing our feelings to situations with work colleagues, neighbours and community, friends or family may not be the most ‘acceptable’ way forward.

Yet our feelings are a natural internal response to our experiences and the circumstances we find ourselves in. Ignoring them or ‘pushing them away’ potentially misses the information they are offering about our current reality.

As we begin to understand, contact, explore and express our feelings we find that;

  • They’re a useful source of information
  • We’re less ‘on autopilot’ and respond more to here-and-now reality
  • We’re more aware of what we need
  • We take more care of ourselves
  • We’re more ‘in contact’ with other people
  • We’re able to be more spontaneous

This ‘Feelings 101’ or Introduction to Feelings is a number of pages that look at ideas like;

  • What our feelings are
  • Why we have feelings
  • What feelings mean
  • How our feelings work
  • How to get started, and do more with feelings
  • Why we have bad feelings
  • Why we have some bad feelings over and over
  • How we can have fewer of these recurring bad feelings

The articles link together. But clicking on the ‘Feelings 101’ logo will always bring you back to this start page.

Take the Feelings 101

A useful way to ‘take the Feelings 101’ is to read each article in order from this list below. However, each article is written to ‘stand alone’ and you might want to dip into the ones that seem most interesting.

Take the ‘Feelings 101’ and make a start with your feelings!

  1. Getting Started – Somatic Feelings and Authentic Feelings – great sources of information
  2. The River of Feelings – Looking Away, Diving In or Just Watching
  3. Saving ‘Feelings’ Stamps
  4. Feelings in our Early Family – Some feelings were allowed, other feelings were not
  5. Beginning to Talk About Feelings
  6. Looking More Closely at ‘Can’t’
  7. Can someone really ‘make me feel bad’ by what they say to me?

Getting support with feelings
Remember that everyone is different and any self-help process can only offer ideas in general terms. It may be that ‘dealing with feelings’, especially uncomfortable ones, means working with someone who is qualified to support you.
Why not book an initial assessment session with a counsellor/therapist who is registered with a nationally recognised professional body (such as BACP or UKCP in the UK)?

 

Categories
Understanding Ourselves

Authentic Feelings – a great source of information

Why have feelings? What’s the point? Feelings are natural reactions to real situations. They have a physical and a psychological impact. They are useful because they give us information about the situation we are it. Not having feelings would be to miss this useful (sometimes vital) information!

Take the Feelings 101

Somatic Feelings – information from our bodies
If I feel hunger, thirst or tiredness these are physiological responses to physical realities.
The realities are (in order) ‘my body needs food’, ‘my body needs water’ or ‘my body needs sleep’.
The same goes for feeling hot, shivering with cold or feeling poorly. The realities here are ‘my body is at too high a temperature’, ‘my body is at too low a temperature’ or ‘my body isn’t working as usual’.

These somatic feelings (e.g. ‘hunger’, ‘thirst’ and ‘tiredness’) are ways for our bodies to give us information about the immediate physical realities at that time.
We can then use our ‘thinking’ to change these physical realities e.g. by getting food, water or sleep. Or by turning down the heating, pulling on a jumper or seeing our GP.
In short, these somatic feelings are providing us with useful information that we can use. Let me emphasise that last point – the information we are getting from these feelings is something we can take into account as we do something different.
Without the feelings we would starve, dehydrate or burn out etc. without getting to know in advance that it was about to happen.

Authentic Feelings – a source of information.
If I’m walking in the jungle and a leopard appears I may feel fear.
If I’m awoken in my hotel room by loud music from next door then I may feel anger.
If my best friend said ‘Goodbye’ last week I may feel sad.

Notice how these feelings also have physiological components e.g. racing heart, tense muscles and tearful eyes. Our physiology for these feelings also includes hormonal activity.

So, by comparison with the somatic feelings, what information are these feelings providing?

  • Fear – tells us that there is a problem in the immediate future that we don’t yet have a solution for (e.g. the leopard).
  • Anger – tells us that there is a problem in the present which we don’t yet have a solution for (e.g. the noise).
  • Sadness – tells us that there is a problem in the recent past that we don’t yet have a solution for (e.g. the loss of our friend).

So, these feelings are hormonal and physical internal reactions and point to unresolved problems just as with somatic feelings. Again, our feelings are giving us information.
Just as with the somatic ‘bad’ feelings (e.g. hunger) these ‘bad’ feelings (e.g. sadness) tend to highlight some external circumstance that is, to some degree or other, causing an external stress.
And, just as with the somatic feelings, we can use thinking to find a way to solve the problem (e.g. shoot the leopard, tell the person in the street that we need them to be more careful, Skype or replace our friend).

In Transactional Analysis these three ‘bad’ feelings (Fear, Anger, Sadness) along with Joy are described as ‘authentic’.

Expressing Authentic Feelings finishes them.

Expressing authentic feelings is a very ‘clean’ process. As we feel the sadness of losing our friend, naturally cry, and ‘hear’ the information, the loss, that the feeling is offering to us, the feeling soon passes. There is a sense of completeness and ease, with no ‘aftershocks’ or ‘rumblings’. When authentic feelings are expressed, they are done with. And we can get on and use the information they offered to us – like Skyping our friend.

The same is true of an authentic expression of anger. If I really allow the feelings of anger when I’m awoken in the night I ‘hear’ my urge to be attacking and to ‘make them change’. Using thinking, I decide the most effective solution is to ‘phone reception and express assertively just how much I need my neighbour to ‘turn it down’. Having allowed this anger, it is complete. It doesn’t rumble on or come back in waves. I get back to sleep.

Other feelings are not so ‘Authentic’
Having feelings like ‘panic’, ‘guilty’ or ‘feeling invisible’ or ‘frustrated’ isn’t so straightforward. They are certainly real feelings in the sense that they may come as a strong reaction to the circumstances we find ourselves in.
But when we consider the information they offer it doesn’t seem so clear. And, these feelings have a tendency to recur, or just ‘rumble on’ after the event that triggers them.
In TA, these feelings are considered to be inauthentic, or ‘racket’ feelings, quite unlike the four authentic feelings of joy, sadness, anger and fear.

Take the Feelings 101

Getting support with feelings
Remember that everyone is different and any self-help process can only offer ideas in general terms. It may be that ‘dealing with feelings’, especially uncomfortable ones, means working with someone who is qualified to support you.
Why not book an initial assessment session with a counsellor/therapist who is registered with a nationally recognised professional body (such as BACP or UKCP in the UK)?

Categories
Understanding Ourselves

Dealing with Panic

Having a panic attack is certainly a frightening experience and may leave you wondering ‘what’s wrong with me?’ ‘Am I ill?’ ‘Am I going mad?’ 

A useful, four-fold approach to dealing with panic is;

  • Clarification
  • Normalisation
  • Coping
  • Exploration

This approach is something to work with when you are not panicking, when you are able to think clearly and rationalise the panic experiences you have had.

Clarification

Begin with basic questions and answers regarding your panic experience. During a panic attack you may well believe that you are ‘about to die’ or are ‘going mad’. But, now you are able to reflect calmly on your experience of panic, take a look at this useful NHS resource; NHS Panic Resource 

  • Does the duration of 5 to 20 minutes match with your experience?
  • Did the physical symptoms of panic described match with your experience?
  • When you read the criteria regarding seeking medical advice, did they apply to your panic experience?

The article describes well the intense psychological symptoms, their sudden appearance and their frightening impact. But it also reassures that they aren’t dangerous, they don’t result in physical harm and are unlikely to require a hospital admission.

Normalisation

Your experience of panic involved some very intense physical and psychological symptoms and there is a natural tendency to infer from these that you’re experiencing something extraordinary. Indeed, as far as your general range of personal experiences go, the symptoms are extraordinary.

However, across the population, at least one in ten people experiences occasional panic attacks and around 1% (or, in the UK, half a million of us) experience worrying, recurrent and unexpected panic.

During your attack you may feel very alone and detached – but calmly viewed across the population you are in good company. This is why there are so many resources out there.

As well as the NHS site above, it’s certainly worth reading what MIND, Rethink and AnxietyUK have to say.

Coping Strategies – 1. Avoiding Attacks

The NHS guidance points to a number of ways to avoid panicking. These are about eating regular meals which stabilise blood-sugar levels and avoiding those powerful psychotropic drugs we so often rely on – caffeine, nicotine and alcohol.

The guidance also points to ‘relaxation techniques’ e.g. yoga and meditation which benefit us is many ways, including by reducing our general level of arousal. These are most effective when practiced regularly and built into a lifestyle in a way that you experience as enjoyable.

Coping Strategies – 2. When Panic Strikes

The two main ideas about dealing with panic as it is happening are ‘controlled breathing’ and ‘relaxation techniques’. These are detailed well by the NHS and AnxietyUK and many people find that they have some use, even if they are not completely effective.

Exploration

Exploration is really about beginning to get to grips with the underlying causes of your panic experiences and beginning to work with them therapeutically. Here are some ways to begin to explore;

During panic we often have an urge to literally run away from the people, place or situation we find ourselves in. Do you have a sense of which place, people or situations invite panic?

Perhaps keeping a log of where you were, who you were with and what you were doing would be helpful in finding common environmental ‘triggers’ for your panic?

Other exploratory questions;

  • When you are panicking what do you have the urge to do?
  • What do you have the urge to stop doing?
  • Do you want to run to a particular place?
  • Do you have the urge to be with someone in particular?
  • Do you have the urge to be alone?
  • Where would you want to be, ideally, with this panic?
  • Who would you want with you, ideally, at that time?
  • When was the first time you can remember panicking in this way?

Take the Feelings 101

Getting Support with Panic

Everyone is different and any self-help process can only offer ideas in general terms. An experienced counsellor or psychotherapist will have met panic reactions many times before and be ready to be with you as you continue this exploration. Why not book an initial assessment session with a counsellor/therapist who is registered with a nationally recognised professional body (such as BACP or UKCP in the UK)?