You need to feel your feelings – said every therapist, ever. We know, it’s cliché and it sounds like we pulled this right from a cheesy romcom movie where the main character finds themselves in therapy after a tumultuous breakup. We get it but stick with us. Feeling your feelings allows for an increase in emotional awareness, and therefore aids in emotion regulation. Feeling your feelings is the path to emotional freedom. If you are reading this and thinking, ‘okay I’m listening, but how does this even work?’ – you are not alone. Being able to feel your feelings is not easy, it’s a skill. Not surprisingly, Marsha Linehan, the founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) came up with a tangible way to do this. Mindfulness of current emotions, a DBT skill, by definition asks us to observe, describe, and allow ourselves to have emotions without judging them or trying to inhibit them, block them, or distract from them. It is consciously directing your attention away from your thoughts, and onto your emotional experience, without judgement.

When practicing mindfulness of current emotions, ask yourself, what emotion am I feeling? If you can’t name the emotion, you can’t tame the emotion (noticing judgements around the amount of cliché sayings in this article and letting them go). The first step in emotion regulation is being able to name your emotion. Ask yourself, what emotion am I experiencing? Then ask yourself, what does this emotion feel like in my body? What sensations am I experiencing right now? Watch to see how long it takes for the emotion to go down, or the quality of experience to change. Adopt a curious mindset. This may sound like, ‘what is happening for me right now?’

We want to feel our feelings in proportion to the stimuli. This means that emotions can be painful and amplifying the emotion and suppressing the emotion actually makes the emotions more painful. We amplify our emotions with rumination, using judgmental language around our emotional experience i.e. it is ridiculous that I feel this way, I hate myself for feeling this way, etc. Suppressing emotions can look like avoidance, minimizing, thought suppression, and engaging in target behaviors.

Emotions are like waves, another well-circulated metaphor that describes the physiological experience of emotions. Ask yourself, have I ever felt an emotion forever? Emotions peak like waves do in a storm, and they inevitably crash - meaning the sensations and thoughts inevitably stop. We can surf the emotion wave by using distress tolerance skills and mindfulness skills. Feeling your feelings does not mean that you have to act on them. We can experience intense anger without screaming or yelling. We can experience shame without hiding or avoiding. We can experience sadness without acting out. Being able to experience emotions, regardless of intensity without acting on them unskillfully is the hallmark of behavioral control. Try thinking dialectically about emotions and action urges. You can say to yourself; two things are true, I can feel (insert emotion) and it doesn’t mean I have to do (insert corresponding behavior). You can even practice loving your emotions. Loving emotions is the opposite of pushing them away and suppression. Remember, emotions are important for our survival. Emotions communicate to us, emotions help communicate to others, and emotions motivate us for change! Having emotions means you’re human.

The skill, mindfulness of current emotions doesn’t mean that we won’t feel sadness, anger, fear or shame, it is a skill to reduce the suffering regarding these emotions. Learning how to let go of emotions is extremely difficult and takes practice. As with all skills, we recommend practicing skills when you are not already dysregulated because learning is easier in wise mind!

Practice, practice, practice!

-Melanie Rista