It must be a modern issue that people aren’t really in connection with their feelings, as a part of not being connected to themselves. It’s a problem because if feelings are repressed, they don’t get properly processed, and if you are not in touch with your feelings it can cause problems in your relationship with others.

This can occur for different reasons, one is because when you were a child it wasn’t okay to express your feelings, especially the negative ones. But now you are an adult, you can and must question this conditioning.  Some parents are generally uncomfortable with any kind of negative emotion in their kid, just because they’d prefer the child to be content and happy all the time, without any problems. Moreover society punishes people for different kinds of emotions. Boys and men are punished when expressing sadness or fear, and women are punished when expressing anger. It’s toxic, but fortunately it slowly changes for the better.

Getting in touch with your feelings is a longer process, it won’t happen overnight. But with practice it will gradually show the positive effect on your relationships and your quality of life.

Being disconnected from your feelings also means you are disconnected from your inner child. Your inner child is the part of your psyche that got hurt when you were little, and wasn’t processed. Everyone was hurt at least a little when we were kids, it doesn’t take horrible parents or caregivers, it really happens with everyone. Taking care of it doesn’t mean blaming our caregivers, just acknowledging actions and effects. I will write about the inner child later in a post.

Our feelings and emotions are indicators. Just like when you touch something sharp or pointy, you’ll feel pain and you’ll pull your hand away. When you feel emotional pain, it tells you to avoid that situation in the future. When you feel joy, you want more of that experience. And anger also indicates some crisis that you have to fight through. The unhelpful ways you act on your emotions were actually helpful methods when you learned them, when you were little. But they might not serve you anymore. Negative feelings are the urge to change, therefore they are good things, when managed. Sometimes you shouldn’t handle situations the way you initially have an urge to, because they just make things worse. If you yell at your loved one out of anger, it rarely makes anything better. Just like if you break up out of fear of abandonment, without the actual, rational reason to do so, that is clearly a bad decision that came out of a strong emotion.

Ask yourself how you are feeling
The expression “me time” is pretty trendy lately, and for some it might sounds like some selfish luxury to have. Well, it’s not. It’s a necessity for a healthy and balanced life, and if you think about it, it’s pretty selfless: if you take care of yourself first, you can take better care of others. If you are feeling okay in your skin, that is the state of mind where you can give the best kind of love to anyone. But you must accept the fact that you have to take care of your needs and feelings, it can’t be avoided in the process of becoming your better self.

So ask yourself how you are feeling!

If you are not used to having this kind of inner conversation, it might be easier for you to imagine your childhood self living inside of you, and waiting for you to show up. Ask that little child how they are, what are they feeling and why. Pay close attention to what they have to say, and do it with compassion and empathy. You wouldn’t be mean to a child, would you? Children need attention, understanding, acceptance without judging. And soft, but stable boundaries. Which are basically what adults need, too.

Ask yourself: “How am I feeling right now? What do I feel in my body?” Are you stressed out? Do you feel tension in your shoulders? Or is your chest heavy? Are you sad? Notice these mental and bodily feelings. You don’t have to do anything else, just monitor your body and mind every day, when you have a moment. Do it on the tram, do it in the shower, and especially do it when you do feel a strong emotion! Do it for at least 30 days, and do it as often as you can. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes at a time, and it gets faster and easier with time. It makes a huge difference in your daily life, helps you to learn about yourself, and helps you to manage emotions, since you will notice small changes in your mood, and you can prevent emotional avalanches when you can identify the signs in time. If you notice and express your discontentment early on, if won’t build up and blow up.

And lastly, everyone needs someone who truly cares about how we feel. It’s like when very lonely people are asked how they are, this small gesture already makes them happy. This way you are starting a new kind of connection with yourself by only asking how you are. Even when you don’t do anything with the results of the monitoring, you just observe what is going on in you. Without the urge to change it, just observe, without judgement, with acceptance. It can be challenging if you are used to the negative self talk, but with practice, it get’s much much easier.

Why not be you the primary person who cares about you? Your longest relationship in life is with yourself, from birth to death. Make it the best relationship you have.

Photo by Vlad Chernolyasov on Unsplash