How to actually “sit with your feelings.”
Have you ever been advised by a therapist or enlightened friend to "sit with your feelings"? Or perhaps you've been told it's essential to "feel your feelings" (which is true), but you're unsure of what that looks like in practice. Therapists love to use phrases like these in session as a means to encourage people to confront, rather than deny, how they are feeling. But what does it actually mean to sit with your feelings? And how is doing that even productive?
Rumination, a counter experience to sitting with your feelings, is an excruciating mental process that is a frequent catalyst to seeking therapy. Rumination involves repetitively perseverating on an experience, emotion or thought and magnifying all the distressing elements. It's no wonder why someone might bawk at the idea of "sitting with" sadness, hurt, anger, or any other uncomfortable emotion, especially when you come to therapy to escape these unwanted feelings. This is why it’s important to understand what is being asked of you and why.
Accessing your unfiltered emotions without magnifying or minimizing them is a daunting task that can go can haywire if not given the proper information and tools. When you’re told to “sit with your feelings,” what you’re really being told is to not shove them down or blow them up- just feel them as they are and as they come. Dwelling is an unproductive experience and results in more anguish. Feeling your feelings as they are, and as they come is therapeutic and results in solutions.
When we “dwell” on something we live in suffering. When we “sit” in something we live in healing.
How is this true? Sitting with your feelings is not the absence of adaptive, intentional coping. Rather than pushing your emotions away, sitting with your feelings invites your emotions in, like a friend coming over for coffee. Rather than overindulging in unproductive mental narratives, sitting with your feelings means observing what it is your mind and body are experiencing. We are able to apply adaptive, effective coping tools to our situations when we approach our emotional experiences with this level of ease. Emotions are not the enemy. Our emotional experiences actually hold valuable information that we need to access in order to better care for ourselves.
In case I haven’t said it enough, feeling your feelings is not wallowing in self-pity. Certainly, there may be a time and place for that at some point. But what I am advocating for is adding a flavor of curiosity to your felt experiences. So what does this actually look like?
Imagine you are feeling something distressing - perhaps it’s grief, hurt, concern or regret. Sitting with one of those emotions means literally pausing, noting the emotion that has surfaced, taking a big deep breath, and just feeling the feeling. No need to talk yourself out of feeling it or give into unhelpful self-talk. Just feel what is. Once you have done that, start asking yourself these questions:
“What is the belief or fear fueling this emotion?” “What do I actually need more or less of right now to feel more secure, hopeful or at peace with myself?” “What do I know about myself / life that will bring some clarity to this moment?” “How can I reduce the intensity of this feeling?” These questions create a path through what you’re feeling, rather than around.
Therapists also want to help you no longer feel a certain way. The means to that end may surprise you though, especially when we don’t prescribe what you may want to hear. Learning to sit with your feelings means unlearning the urge to self-medicate, over-analyze, numb and avoid experiences. When this happens feelings become guides to our inner world, sharing a plethora of information that tell us exactly what we need to know in a given circumstance. Those unwanted feeling eventually get replaced by tings of short-lived emotion whose purpose is to alert us to new information about ourselves. This feeling transformation takes place when we learn to sit with what is.
