I have been spending some time lately working on fully experiencing my feelings, since I think that until recently, I spent more time in my head than really feeling things. Meaning that as soon as I felt a feeling, it acted as a trigger to figure out how to react, and took me into a planning place if it was a bad feeling I wanted to get rid of or to start thinking about how not to lose the feeling if it was good . It also meant that I outsourced feelings more to the people I surrounded myself with and lived vicariously through feeling their own strong feelings.
To better integrate and internalize my feelings, I took a few moments to learn where in my body different feelings resided.
Here is what I found:
Anxiety – Above heart.
Fear – Center of chest inline with heart.
Scared – Top of neck where it meets the jaw. (Not sure yet how this is different than fear. Also, need to pinpoint how it is different than Happiness.)
Anger – A little higher on the torso than fear.
Sadness – Below eyes towards nose.
Gratefulness – Lightness where torso meets neck.
Happiness – Lightness below eyes towards temple, Lower Jaw Area (Throat to Mouth).
Boredom – Flows left from left temple.
Confusion – Center of forehead.
What has been interesting, is that feeling my feelings certainly makes me feel more grounded in my own body, and more connected to myself, which in some ways is to be expected.
More interestingly, I have learned that using this method allows me to tap into feeling multiple things at one time. I always assumed that when I felt sad, that only sadness was there, but I have learned that usually, I can also sense some happiness. It’s just that the sadness seems to take over everything and become the focus. With this knowledge and skill, I can instead tune into the feelings of happiness that are faint, and really focus on moving my emotional space there.