Feelings: How to Rediscover our Feelings

These are my notes for class tomorrow. It is from a book called Rediscovering the Lost-Body Connection.

Rediscovering the Lost Body Connection

Chapter 1: Why pay attention to feelings?

The Hawk Story – California’s little lake

            Invisible currents that carry grace. Upward spirals.

Each of us has an inner world and a universe of unexplored possibilities.

One has to lead the other to that current of grace.

An unrecognized capacity waiting to be found. We exist as part of something greater, and our bodies want to connect with it.

Six Fundamentals of Body Knowing and Learning

Most people do not recognize when their feelings rise up because they are too preoccupied with instantly reacting to them – especially when the situations are difficulty, scary, or lonely.

These six steps will give you a body sense for how you carry your feelings in your body.

1.     We all have feelings. Much of our ability to know comes from our body’s ability to know, rather than the mind’s capacity to think. We restrict our knowledge because we do not pay attention to what our body tells us. We have to learn to listen to them.

2.     Every physical sport or activity knows that we learn from the body feel of doing something correctly. A nice golf swing confirms a good drive. An athlete learns from directly entering into the process of learning from inside their bodies. We know it in the bones.

3.     The body’s way of felt-knowing is different from thinking, analyzing, or reasoning. The body senses a relational whole of a situation or experience, embracing the entire web of complex linking and connecting. We have two complementary ways of knowing. We have to learn to use both together in a balance interacting practice.

4.     Greeks had five different kinds of knowledge: scientific knowing, wisdom, opinion, faith, and gnosis. Only scientific knowing relied only on the mind; the rest depended upon the two parts interacting together. These are: hunch, intuition, creativity, inspiration, revelation, and wisdom that comes from experience.

Wisdom expresses far more than information. Solomon, who asked the Lord for wisdom, drew upon a deeper knowing, something beyond logic and law, analysis, reason, and hard-thinking. The body speaks the truth when your mind cannot even begin thinking about what to do or say.

5.     Everyday feelings, emotions, and physical sensations represent the first step. All feelings, whether positive or negative, express an important part of body intelligence because they introduce you to deeper felt meanings.

6.     Most don’t realize how values, basic human goodness, and a positive sense of self are learned and acquired through our body. It arrives through our body’s ability to become aware of innumerable connections. It also knows that each of us is part of a greater whole.

Developing Habits.

Feelings are like a ringing phone. A message is trying to get through. They alert us that some information is waiting for us. Yet, when the feelings-phone rings, we are in a habit of blocking them. Sometimes people escape, numb, avoid, or substitute something they enjoy in place of what they perceive as fearful or a hurting attack.

There is a difference between owning and processing one’s feelings versus acting them out in a destructive way that demands intervention. Learning the habit of noticing and nurturing important feelings is the first step toward processing destructive feelings.

The growth moment is when a person can process one’s feelings that allows the inner felt meaning to unfold and to be heard. Feelings are neither good nor bad. They simply happen. Acting out destructively harms the self and others. There is another way forward.

Invite people to listen to their important feelings.

             By noticing important feelings and to learn how to care for them, a person can embark upon a discovery trip inside themselves. Feelings can express themselves like stories in a book when more pages can be turned, and new discoveries are made. We have to notice and nurture these positive feelings. It motivates learning and results in a development of a lifelong learning.

            We can develop a patient, listening, and caring attitude toward how our bodies carry feelings, especially when there is a lot unreconciled within us. Feelings need to be heard, then they change how we carry them. It frees us from the prison of old, stuck patterns that obstruct wholeness.

            Our bodies are teachers, not enemies. Experiencing this inner resource generates courage, self-confidence, and a creative human spirit. We can feel good about who we are, no matter what our feelings may be or what crisis may swirl around us. Feelings are only the tip of the iceberg and there is a deeper, richer story waiting beneath every feeling.