Intimacy With Your Own Feelings

written by: Kosjenka Muk

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Every method of emotional development, just like every approach in individual sessions which is not only “external” healing but requires the cooperation and emotional involvement of the client, starts with the assumption that the client will have enough contact with his/her emotions and enough awareness for the work to be successful. Very rarely one can find books or workshops which include a different possibility. In practice, however, this ideal is not always achievable.

About 20 percent of people I work with (and, as usually people who come to me are self-motivated, I suspect that the percentage is higher in general population) are very disconnected from their own emotions and are not used to explore them deeper than just on the basic and most superficial level. This is manifested in several ways:
- incapability to separate the personal feelings from the outer situation and look at them independently (i.e. explore the other possible causes)
- incapability to verbalise deeper and subtler levels of emotions besides the most obvious or most intense ones
- incapability to recognise the beliefs that are at the root of those emotions.
Generally, it's the inabillity of a client to explore his inner world through emotional experience rather than through rational analysis.

I find this to be the key obstacle to successful coaching or therapy. Quite often the clients become aware of it themselves, but in spite of all the effort, they might have the feeling that their emotional awareness persistently slips away to the point that they start to doubt their actual capability to feel their emotions.

Since emotions are more spontaneous and instinctive than the rational mind, I believe that a person without emotions does not exist (except maybe for the rare neurological issues). To say that someone cannot feel is like saying that she cannot think or breathe. Emotions are the basis of our self-awareness and the way to get to know ourselves and our environment. Just like we cannot stop thinking for an extended time, it's even less possible not to feel. What can happen is that, if we neglect this natural ability and avoid being aware, it can become weaker or less available, but with conscious practice we can make it grow stronger again.

Not only that we all and at all times experience emotions, but in each of us, at every given moment, there is a presence of rich, complex multilevel emotional experience: some levels are more lasting, more subtle and seem like they are the foundation of our character, while the emotions on other levels are more intense but shorter lasting. Some emotions are extremely gentle, subtle and appear for just a moment, but these very feelings can open the door to different kind of thoughts and perception than normal, to creativity and intuition.

Intimacy with our emotions enables us to have a sense of identity - a deep core within, which is not accessible by rational mind. People who don't have it, might live their life in an almost robotical way, putting bureaucracy and trivial everyday details above their own and others' humanity, or might feel chronically "scattered" and lost.

The origins of emotional dissociation are in decades of avoidance and suppression. This started when our emotions were humiliated, punished or ignored by people who were most important to us at the earliest age, or within traumas and circumstances that were far too toxic and intense for a child to deal with in any other way than through fragmenting and suppression. There is no short-term solution for this, so to people who face this problem, I will usually advise at least a few months of practicing to become more aware of their emotions, before we can continue with sessions. Sometimes, through Soulwork Systemic Coaching, we can explore what was the cause of dissociation – but, as Soulwork is based on emotional experience, this research must be done on an emotional level too. Without the client having at least some awareness of what he feels, it's very difficult to explore his subconscious.

Lack of contact with one’s feelings is also in the root of immature behaviour, all the situations when one might say something like: “I can't understand how he can't see what he is doing!“. This happens because people might be aware of their strong superficial emotions, e.g. anger, but not able to distinguish amongst healthy and immature, innapropriate anger, or not able to realize that their anger might be hiding some other emotions (like fear, shame etc.). Dissociation can also be the cause of incapability to empathize with other people. Furthermore, such people might even find it difficult to feel compassion for their own selves, to be honest with themselves, and to consequently develop healthy self-esteem. We all suppress our emotions to some degree, so it's not so much a question of whether this problem exists in someone or not, but rather to which extent is it present.

In individual coaching or therapy, this problem is manifested in several ways:

• rational analysis of (usually an external) situation without the presence of emotional consciousness and insight

• lack of valid answers to questions about emotions; the client can come up with different rational theories, memories or ideas instead (or very often answers “I don't know”)

• difficulties in verbalising emotions or keeping awareness on a specific emotion

• inability to distinguish mature from immature emotions, i.e., appropriate ones from those that are inappropriate in a specific situation
  
  
• inability to recognise and verbalise unconscious memories. Sometimes the client rejects the idea that the root of the problem might be in a situation or circumstances that she cannot consciously remember. For example, one client told me: “Why do you ask me about my childhood? My childhood has nothing to do with how I feel! I am under stress because of how other people around me behave“. This seems obvious to a person who is not aware of her unconscious processes. When we learn to explore beneath the surface of our experience, we can find the reasons why people react so differently to similar circumstances.
  
  
• unawareness, or active rejection, of our responsibility for our emotions, as a result of lack of consciousness of their underlaying causes
  
  
• people often expect quick and external solutions, often hoping that others and outside circumstances would change.
  

Sometimes, it's easier to work with such clients through metaphors – symbolic images – but since this kind of work also means that they have to, to some extent, give up conscious control and give in to spontaneous associations, difficulties can also occur.

If you recognise yourself in those descriptions, my most important recommendation is long-term work on building awareness of your body and emotions. Primarily, practice daily observation and detailed exploration of your emotions. You can find additional help with other approaches that intensify bodily consciousness, like meditation, dance, aromatherapy, massage, baths – activities that combine working on the physical body with a relaxed consciousness.

Individual online coaching

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© Kosjenka Muk

 

 

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