It's true that talking about things can help us process and understand them better, and it can be a good first step towards resolution. However, it's important to also allow ourselves time to feel and process our emotions within our body. Sometimes we need to take a step back and give ourselves space from the thinking and analyzing and instead allow for reflection and feeling.
Are You Feeling It, or Just Talking About Your Feelings?
While talking about our experiences and emotions can provide intellectual understanding, true healing also involves embodying and fully experiencing those emotions. It's important to not just stay in our heads, but to allow ourselves to fully feel and process our emotions in a somatic or embodied way. This can involve practices such as mindfulness, meditation, movement, or engaging in activities that help us connect with our bodies and physical sensations. By balancing intellectual understanding with embodiment, we can move towards a deeper and more complete healing process.
It's crucial to acknowledge that talking alone may not be enough to truly process and heal from emotional experiences. Avoiding the feeling part and relying solely on intellectualizing can result in suppressing our emotions rather than fully experiencing and understanding them.
This is why it’s essential to create a safe space for ourselves to acknowledge and feel our emotions fully. This involves not only engaging in conversation but also connecting with our bodies and being aware of the physical sensations that accompany our emotions. We often avoid this because we were never taught how to manage uncomfortable emotions and instead found ways (often unhealthy) to avoid them or suppress them all together. It's important to allow ourselves to embrace vulnerability and give ourselves permission to feel, even if it means potentially falling apart temporarily. By facing and processing our emotions fully, we give ourselves the opportunity to heal and move forward in a healthier and more authentic way.