my brain: let me buy a book about how to feel my feelings and then register for a workshop about how to feel my feelings and then do a degree in how to feel my feelings then become a world renowned researcher and public speaker about how to feel my feelings, all while not actually feeling my feelings. yeah that's a good plan!!!!
Well HELL!!!! I literally just had the conversation with my therapist that I needed to take myself back to kindergarten and learn all of the emotions/feelings again because I can't pinpoint how I FEEL. Smh. Its crazy. Thank you so so so so soooooo much for your content. You've provided some key things to help with my personal diagnosis.
My therapist asks me how I'm feeling in the beginning and I cannot pull an "I dunnooo" because she has the feelings wheel laminated right there for the looking.
This is all so much turmoil over illusions...of self, and idenfication, etc. You will get so tired of chasing shadows, you will realize there is a simple solution: let go. You are not your emotions. If they wander in, let them wander back out of your mind.
I think you have to get rid of stuck feelings first by noticing and feeling them. Otherwise, it's just another bypass. The emotions need to be expressed.
I grow up not to show emotions,feelings I was not aloud to speak my mind I had to learn how to It is still a struggle but I getting there still struggle to show joy and emotions thanks for sharing this it helps
I think I would be crying or sad a major part of my days if I was always in my feelings. Learned to push feelings aside and tough it up for the sake of living. Being highly sensitive in a concrete jungle surrounded by predators and wolf packs leaves your nervous system constantly in high alert, burned out with deep pain in your chest area. It’s difficult to breathe deeply and I constantly forget to take a breath, just freeze it and then I have to consciously take a few mindful breaths
Hey I think we get hypersensitive because they are things about ourselves we are not willing to confront, that we repress. Anytime someone makes a criticism or a comment, some wound resurfaces and we start externalizing and battling the world around us but really we need to look at the dragon inside in the eyes instead of running away. It's not "toughen it up" like you said, it's about being honest with oneself and bring up to consciousness what we have buried in the unconscious. Nobody is "sensitive" by birth, it's a trait that surfaces when too many emotions are bottled up. Bottling up the bottling is just a recipe for more problems
I do that constantly... Then, Thinking that I'm actually in touch with my feelings when I'm not really feeling my feelings. I think that that's a mechanism that I have used over my life to try to understand feelings. In reality, I need to feel them in my heart. Thank you so much for your video!❤
Having been in therapy multiple times (and currently for about a year) it is so incredibly hard to not make feelings cognitive, because there are quite a few exercises that make you ask specific questions about when, why, where, with whom, etc. you had a certain feeling. It feels like, if you weren't allowed to feel your feelings as a child, the initial reaction to any strong emotion is always going to be to suppress it first. Then, if you're lucky and therapy works for you, you learn to circle back around to the feeling and analyze it a bit, but by then it's already muddied with secondary emotions and cognitive judgments. My point is that it makes me really sad that it'll probably never be easy or possible for some people to be in harmony with their emotions the same way a non-traumatized person probably is. :( Great video, Kati. Thank you.
Hi thank you for spreading some wisdom in this world. I intellectualize a lot but I've found a trick that really helps, if I ever feel anxiety, an urge to start reading/googling/eating/smoking/redditing when I feel something uncomfortable: I do nothing for 5 minutes. Just nothing. Lying in bed, sitting, starring at an object, doesnt matter. It counteracts the escapism. Instead of fidgeting and moving around and do whatever to distract myself, that makes me stop fleeing for 5 minutes and I get closer to what's really going on and it calms me a lot
This video made me cry so many times. You hit the nail right on the head. I do this all the time, and I have trouble identifying my emotions, or I suppress them because they aren’t convenient at that moment. I work so hard that I crash because I don’t actually process what I feel. I believe my childhood let me to behave like that, but also my comorbid diagnoses of Autism, ADHD and depression. Damn. I knew I did this but not the name for it. I hope to get better at feeling my emotions with the tips you offered. Thank you so much for this video and putting a name to something I’m struggling so hard with ❤
I think alot of people struggle with feelings myself included and I've always viewed myself as emotionally sensitive and I am aware of all the things I do, painfully so. Feeling feelings has been discouraged by others many times in my life and I was told logic was the way and being in control of your emotions was important. While I think a good balance of logic and emotion would be best, I;m really glad to know I'm not alone in trying to be better and understand myself more. Thank you for making this video, I hope it helps other's the way it has me!
It is insane how well intellectualization sits with me. If it's logical how the hell could it be wrong - logically its impossible. I guess there is more to being human than plain old rationality.
now i do the same type of enabling in my own relationships and there are so much more toxic at times than my own family environment growing up. But there is hope, ive been working on myself and learning about all these different things and healthy relationships, boundaries, self esteem, self worth and mutual respect that are so important in any relationship
This is something I have had a very difficult time with over the years and it seems to be getting worse. I have never been able to articulate or understand what was happening to share with my therapist. This has helped a lot. Thank you
Wow! This resonates deeply - I turn very quickly to obsessing over researching and self help books. 😅 I finally started getting back into my body about a year ago when I started doing yoga and cried during nearly each shavasana. This is a great reminder for me to keep up on getting back into my body and NOT living in my head. Thank you 🙏🏻
I spent my adolescence and twenties trying to "self-help book" my way through what I wasn't able to process or feel. Isn't it incredibly confusing when it doesn't actually work and the struggle remains... only coated in layers and layers of intellectual understanding....making it even harder to dig into those actual feelings?!
I have struggled with feelings most of my life. Feelings were not allowed in my family of origin. Went to therapy and 12-step recovery for years, all helpful. ACA has helped so much with getting to the bottom of it. Writing has been a great tool. Learning to allow the feelings to surface, to not push them away, to not be afraid of them... so helpful. ❤
Same, same, same for me! I have been intellectualizing since my early childhood. I am 44 years old and I almost died from sikness, then fell in depression. This change my perspective, I can feel now, not only think and culpabilze about feelings I should feel. Its hard to feel fear, grief, anxiousness, sadness and pain, but I begin to live a new and real life.
Yes. I suffer from intellectualization to avoid actually feeling emotions. Thank God for therapists like you, Kati, who have helped me, over years, to learn to actually feel my feelings. It wasn't until last year that I experienced rage. That required going to a deep tissue massage therapist in conjunction with EMDR (I am recovering from from c-PtSD and Scrupulosity/Religious OCD. Overcoming these complexes and syndromes required sustained self-examination in support groups as well as 1-1 therapy. The good news is: we *can* recover.
This is wonderful! Whenever anyone has told me to “just let my emotions be” I had no idea how to?? This has given me a way to attempt it now! Thank you ❤❤❤
Aaaaahhh! This is so me! I didn’t even realise I was doing this! Thank you - I’d get cross myself with myself. Like obviously I hadn’t gotten all the facts or done enough journaling because I’m still not feeling good! This video had helped to pull together some of the thoughts and ideas I’ve been having. Thank you 🙏
Your advice is always so sage and timely.🌱I am a visionary arts professor/🖌️creativity coach. I’ve developed post traumatic growth activations using flow techniques like: psychic automatism painting, ecstatic sand dancing, root balancing/ballet, and egg shaker bilateral stimulation (which are all great Stimming activities that help one creatively associate with one’s innate emotions.) I hope some of these techniques help others too.🏝️Keep up the great work!🪷
I do this. I'm In therapy for generalized anxiety, but Childhood emotional neglect and abuse leaves me where I don't recognize thoughts from feelings, codependent, etc... . Dr. Tori Olds is awesome for IFS, Katie, your vids are great and helpful. My own therapist is awesome and is my current favorite person in the world. But, yeah, I'm intellectualizing my wits out.
This is so helpful. I never knew there was a name or reason behind what I did. I've approached my entire life as a problem to be solved; I always looked for the reason/solution/answer to what I was feeling so that I could understand it in order to work through it. Doing so validated my feelings - like I wasn't feeling these things because I was crazy - there was a legit reason behind them and so it made it ok. I have to often give myself permission to just sit in my feelings now, but turning to research or picking them apart to find the root of them is still a strong pull - but at least I'm aware of it now.
This video came up at the best time. My homework for therapy today was to think about what my defense mechanisms are, and this pretty much confirms intellectualization is my primary instinct.
Also another great thing is that im trying to parent communicate and illustrate to my own children the importance of them knowing that they are always enough for me this world everything, and that i believe in them, support them, care about them, are here for them and love them no matter what happens. And explaining to them that not succeeding and failing are good things as the make you better at something for trying and putting in the work at it and that when you succeed later by putting in more work and effort the success will be that much more meaningful and important and will give you the confidence to go on and do more and bigger things next.
i never had a word for it until now, but intellectualising is exactly what i've been doing. i knew there that it was something that was not helping my case but i never thought of it as a negative coping mechanism.
Well if im being genuinely honest; I would say I'm intellectually promiscuous...idk if that legitimately makes sense or not; meaning that I tend to seek out all sorts of bias .... but that being said; I believe we all have a responsibility to want to check in with ourselves and ask ourselves 'is what I'm doing working?' It might seem like a complicated question, but of course, I've never believed anything is an exact science, and therefore, if something doesn't feel right or is not serving us well anymore...then sometimes it's best to just walk away (however depending on the specific situation at present - it's also important not to be reckless). On the other hand, sometimes it can be good as my new profile name suggests: 'embrace the struggle'. And lbh; we all just have to come to the realization that what works for one person might not work for another...and that's ok. Even with how my ways of thinking and feeling are from time to time; I still hold the belief that we should all try to be kind and set healthy boundaries (even though it's easier said than done).
I have struggled with intellectualizing my feelings my whole life. I tracked it down to a time in my past where a parent who preached rationality and objectivity (very science-minded) had a habit of telling others in the family what they “had a right” to feel. Almost like feelings had to be “earned” or they have to come from an intellectually solid position before they were okay. But by the time I’d figured out whether it was okay for me to feel, the moment had gone and I’d rationalized them away. The whole reason I even found your channel was on a quest to figure out if my feelings about something in my life were right or wrong, or if I was (a very specific kind of) bad person for feeling the way I was feeling. I’ve made an effort to be a very attentive “parent” to my feelings - I’ll drop whatever I’m doing and turn my attention towards them simply because I know how easy it is for them to feel unwanted/neglected, so then they run and hide. Pausing right then and there to acknowledge them - as if they’re skittish children who have been neglected in the past - helps them trust that I’ll attend to them reliably. Maybe in the future, I can safely ask them to wait a moment if I’m occupied, but for now, I coddle them by always pausing and giving them several minutes to be heard.
THANK YOU! I'm the one who asked this related question last week. I did help me try to stop. Three out of four ebooks from the library were related to my trauma. Returned those books and started trying to focus on my here and now. Not ready for those feeling but working on it. Of course, I noticed then that I was trying to intellectualize my intellectualization, hahaha. 🤔
I don’t allow myself to cry. I don’t allow myself to feel dysregulated or have a bad day. I think the reason behind why I feel uncomfortable is, “I’m not allowed to do this. I shouldn’t be kind to myself when I feel this way. I feel the need to limit myself because I’m feeling this way. I’m wrong for feeling this way, and I’m only deserving of love and kindness when I’m not feeling this way.” Those are some of the reasons behind why I feel so uncomfortable.
36-M, Where I live there are limited resources for therapy...you seem to be genuinely real and relatable. Learning to feel my feelings is one of my issues and this has been the best explanation so far. Thank you!!!
I’ve been struggling with this since I can remember, which has led to a ton of fossilised feelings. I still catch myself trying to feel through my thoughts, which will lead to confusion and misunderstanding. But I will be more vigilant and try to really feel those emotions from now on. thank you as always Kati
I like the editing on this video! And the topic itself was surprisingly relatable. Thank you for your work. I'm happy we all have you to help. It means a lot. 💚
Wow, this opened up more for me, as im currently on my path of self discovery towards trauma healing. Thank you so much, for always helping,always being real and honest and human😊❤
@Katimorton the hardest part for me is letting go after I’ve intellectualized. Like you said, which I really resonated with was “You’re so aware of your harmful behaviors that you can’t get yourself to stop doing them”. It’s also hard for me to tame the research beast lol I have OCD and it’s one of my biggest compulsions. I didn’t realize until your video that I’m plugging away right now trying to understand how to get on top of my disorder from all angles, trying to get to the bottom of it. It’s all just a defense mechanism as you said! This was the best video I heard on feeling your feelings by far because you aren’t saying this is easy, but you are telling us it’s important and is a way for us to connect with ourselves and others better. There’s so much that I learned, thank you!!! And I would love to do one of your workshops, can I email you about finding one that is best for me? Thanks!
This is such an informative video that couldn’t have come at a better time. When I find myself trying to intellectualise my feelings the best thing I have found is meditation. It slows me down and allows me to sit with my feelings and be an observer rather than a doer. I’m really trying to work on being more present and in the moment rather than always looking for solutions. I find once I’m present and in touch with my feelings they start to fade away. Like you mentioned, the more we try to repress them, the stronger they become. Meditation has helped me be more mindful and made me sit with those sometimes uncomfortable feelings that often pass faster when acknowledged. Thanks Katie for another great video and I hope we can all get better and feeling our feelings. ❤️
Sheesh…. Now I understand why my therapist would get upset at me when I would take notes during sessions instead of really doing the work. I thought I was doing the work??? I guess the tears need to flow and the anger needs to be moved through. Thank you for explaining this!
Absolutely. Probably my biggest problem. The harder of a time I&m having the more I distance myself from it thinking I'm "solving" it. In truth I'm trying to save myself because facing it is too hard. ANd then I wonder why I'm only getting worse... Because there is no solution to sadness. And it can be overwhelming and feel hopeless, so this removes that feeling, even though it doesn't help us. Our minds can play such tricks on us.
Papillon, yes this is something I've been asking myself in recent memory and especially over the years as well ... and with what is going on in concern to the news, all the global conflicts, inflation, and a horrendous economy; I think it can be very easy to get tangled up in such thought provoking headlines and trends. And social media can be quite ambiguous when it comes to seeking all the proper information and bias ... but with that being said; it can be difficult to navigate through all the different distractions that are omnipresent, and I've learned to become more self reliant when it comes to short-term and prolonged stress...as such I've been saving some of my income in spots I can't really tell much of anybody about - otherwise I'd be in deep trouble, lol...but anyways, my whole point is that I've been trying to start my own business with the realization that things probably aren't going to get any better economically - and I believe that is very much relevant with 'we' as the 'human race' tend to overthink and complicate things (and I still do myself from time to time) although I often have to tell myself that it's no one else's responsibility other than 'mine' to want to do something about how I'm feeling and how I choose to process information...and as a neurodivergant person, I often have difficulty being able to self-regulate with even the most basic habits; but I can assure you that it's something I'm working in, even if it's not coming naturally right away; I realize that this won't be something that can be accomplished overnight, and I'm just going to need to understand that this will take gradual practice. And I know I've had a lot to say up to this point, but if you made it this far reading all of this, I just wanna say thank you and always know you're not alone, and just try and be faithful, even in the toughest and most turbulent times 🙏
Thank you for this untalked topic. Very helpful Kati. Thank you again for sharing all your experience with so many people who cant afford therapy. Your a role model
Thank you for the video I’ve been thinking instead of feeling as a way to cope and intellectualizing after a very traumatic experience I think 💭 I’m Not feeling enough
Of course, this is where l'm at listening to this video. Trying to make sense of what l am feeling. Trying to take the middle path rather then take one polar view of what I am feeling. (DBT skills can help).
ive been watching you for many years.. this is the first time i've commented... and right now i'm struggling a lot more than i think I ever have... but i'm finding it hard to feel things. My partner is in ICU and is struggling. I need to find some energy to get out of the house, to get myself out of bed and have a walk or talk to someone... It'll be a slow process but i'll get there, listening to you really helps and I can't thank you enough for your talks x
Sometimes just 'saying' it helps you commit yourself to doing some of the things. That sounds like a heavy load. Wishing you the best, give yourself grace (and Ill try to take my own advice!)
I can relate to this. I lost my grandma a year ago and I'm just starting to feel it. Since i have major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, it's difficult to identify my emotions and then feel safe enough to feel them. My family handled their sadness in private and anger was expressed often due my brother's intellectual disability. I've decided that burying my emotions isn't healthy for me, so I'll keep working on it.
When I had a lot of anxiety and jealousy and felt miserable because of that strong flow, I listened to a book that explained why people feel these things and what are the techniques to overcome them, and it really help me
I need to understand what happened, why and so on, if not I won't let it go. My concern is to avoid it from happening again in the future. But I also feel it, I feel a lot! I have hyper empathy, so.. I am autistic and ADHD, and is the way I process. Once in my life I didn't allowed myself to feel pain if it didn't make sense. Abusers loved that. People would debate me into doing and feeling what they wanted, bc I couldn't "debunk them". I have always been very naive and logical. Only recently I've learned that I don't need to understand why it hurts. If it hurts, it hurts. Then I will remove myself from that situation, remove access and so on. But after I have allowed myself to feel it, I will intellectualize the situation (so I've been told that is what I am doing). If not, if I don't understand what happened, it will for sure happen again.
“You only chew. You don’t digest.” It’s way easier to feel feelings when you have awe in your life that you share with someone. Most people would benefit from cultivating it intentionally. It is one of the fastest ways to build trust and let people in so they can see you feeling them. Speaking from experience.
I do the exact same thing as you, Kati. I am working on feeling my feelings in therapy and it is really hard. I know and feel safe with my therapist. I did start to cry in session but I held back a lot. Like you say it's a process not perfection.
I definitely struggle with this. Thank you for bringing it up. As I'm listening to you, I'm reminded that no one ever asked me how I felt about something when I was growing up. It was always, "what do you think?" I think I'm afraid of my feelings because my feelings weren't validated when I was a kid, and I was even told that I wasn't feeling what I was actually feeling. Ugh. That's a terrible place to be as a child. Thinking just feels safer. 😂😢
I do this as well, but when I can look at every perspective I can make sense of what's going wrong and why I may feel a certain way. Once I can sort out that info I can actually feel things.
My therapist has been trying to get me to "feel my feelings" for over a year with not much success. They break through occasionally and are quite painful but my default defense mechanism is anger so that quickly and automatically swoops in and saves me the hurt I know is there. I can't consciously let my feelings out because I've suppressed them for so long that I feel like if I pull just one finger out of the dike the entire thing will collapse and I'll be submerged so deeply that I'll never make it back.
Thank God that i emotionally outgrown Borderline a bit. In my teens and 20's it was very intense. I am the sensitive type. I am perceptive and very little judgemental.
Story of my life. Being highly emotionally intelligent and being a smart ass and always analysing and being aware if everything going on in my head yet never really feeling it. Always examining them but never just feeling them. I used too but they were too much or dismissed or people couldn't handle them or they would try kill me because of the intensity. Trouble is i have so much over lapping stuff. With D.I.D rhen being a HSP and also an empath. So I'm rather rare and they all kinda merge into quite a complex thing. I'm trying to feel again but you get so used to being numb or cold or just negative stuff it's hard to just be happy like an alien emotionm i tried to work out how i was feeling during video but typically i couldn't tell anything like i was just hollow. I keep flip flopping around with hating the world to now knowing i have to allow myself to feel and not close off and be the vulnerable person i wanna but ao much trauma just keeps making me shutdown. Like what do you do when your feelings are so intense and interlocking and deep? I just wanna be able to feel again and be in the moment but like i forgot how to do it. All my brain does is just think forever but being in the moment is near impossible.
I’ve always had this problem and it’s just gotten worse as I get older. Even with therapy, I can identify the feelings, identify the body responses, but my brain just shuts it down. It seems like my parents always lived by a philosophy of “the world doesn’t stop, so you can’t either.” If a feeling is going to slow you down, then we just need to put it aside and keep working on what’s in front of us… but the world never stops so you never get to go back to them.
I grew up with a lot of anger that I could not have possibly expressed. Subsequent bouts of family therapy confirmed this. So harboring resentment kind of became a way of life for me. When I was in the Army I was mad at the Army because I felt like I had been screwed on my contract. Then at school I was angry at this girl who camped out by my door and constantly ran me down. I probably could have stopped her if I had really wanted to. I've found that twelve step groups are a good place to process anger, but you don't want to get too self pitying there. In AA they say, "Resentments are the number one offender." That is especially true in my case.
One good thing about dual diagnosis rehabilitation is that they make you actually make you write down 3 feelings 2x a day and share it with the group. That's 30 days of feelings and I still suck at it
My favorite self-description of feelings (usually to help those who do not wish to feel them, like myself) is that they are like barometric readings. They are data on our experience. We do not smash or kick or suppress barometers for what they tell us, even if they tell us we should cancel today's parade. I say that to say this: there is still an intellectual component to reading barometric data and then figuring out what to do with it. But what's different - and I think this is the workbookitis you have described - is that reading up on *how a barometer works* isn't the same as reading *what a barometer says,* or learning how our day should be affected by what it says. Something like that, maybe? I dunno...
I've done this for 20 years, and even though I've been aware that I'm doing this for a loong time, I have only been able to stop doing this after 2 years of therapy and for a short period of 2 months. I miss not intelectualizing. I'm working towards being able to feel fully again. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm a long way there. Sometimes feelings flow through me and I'm able to just feel them.
I used to be so, so good at not feeling my feelings at all. I lost that skill to some extent and I have been miserable ever since. I am doing my very best to ignore them but I can't. I know what the emotions are telling me and there is nothing I can do to fix things or make them better. If I could stop feeling my feelings, I would be so much happier. I don't understand why so many people say "feel your feelings" when that means I am condemned to constant, unyielding misery.
Nothing has resonated stronger with me then this!!!!!!! 😘💕 Thank you so much for describing this experience as, it has being a struggle for me.. Basically since my second- year of early education, most of my life essentially! Said with love and kindness 🙂 For me that emotion is Vulnerability I don't like it..... ..one bit, not the feeling of being excited but just feeling of been sad,/ crying, the feeling of letting someone into your world and life, only to have them reject you..... Or ghost you 😘♡♡ The way someone feels about excitement it's the same way I feel about connection and vulnerability/ sadness it feels unsafe and crying.. Can feel icky but cathartic at the same time, in terms of feeling sad
NVC helped me to practice self empathy and empathy towards others. Listening to feelings and needs, looking behind the thoughts. It's a journey xD I guess it's a balance between finding the right tool and get to use them when needed. I've certainly been intelectualizing, but for the purpose of getting a toolkit I can use, because my toolbox was kind of empty, and only very broken tools to find xD
Ugh I tend to do this so much... But having BPD is like sailing an angry sea of emotions and huge crashing waves of other emotions, it's like a storm at the sea. I had to learn to let those feelings go through me even if they felt like I was collapsing. I allowed myself to have a crisis in a controlled way to let them flow... Intellectualizing it's a way to separate myself from being drawn from those strong tides of emotions, it feels like a self discovery. The issue is the same, a tale as old as time: finding the grey area. How do I come to that grew area? Ty Kati, I was hesitant to click this notification and watch it. But it's what I needed.
Kia ora from New Zealand i have been watching lots of videos this year. And got your book just recently read it in day well listen to it yay Audible. This video is my well shit moment. This is fully what i do. Still need to lean how to feel.......... Sending much Aroha Love ya work ❤
This sounds a lot like me. The only thing i would add to the list is to first get rid of the emotion, then do a deep dive into getting as much information about it so i can mimic it when needed around safe people. The feeling wheel is great for figuring out emotions out and tying them together. My therapist is amazed how i can talk about all my trauma with no emotional reactions. One of the things we plan on trying is focusing on emotions, not the trauma. Sounds intriguing and something i would try cause it is not those bad ones of happiness and such. Those seem very unrealistic. Emotions as a whole seem like a waste of energy and mind power. But like you talked about, they keep building up inside, and the vaults are full. I'm not sure how many vults the mind will let you have before exploding. So, it is either doing emotional work or exploding within. Thank you for your suggestions and thoughts on this.
Intellectualization, what a fancy word for over-thinking. I'm in on the band-waggon of intelletualization. I have been told many times by a friend that I don't allow myself to feel my feelings. I do not want to loose control over myself. So I analyze, and analyze, and collect evidence to the point it would hold up in court. Until ... analysis paralysis. Until I've nearly forgotten why the process started at all. So, here it is, peace. I've done all that was possible, and it is no longer important. Analysis soothes me, it is order in chaos. Analysis was the key process during my professional life, now in retirement I can use the skill to structure feelings and build a causal chain.
Yes, i can feel conflicted about feelings for certain people. I do get body somathic symptoms with very tense muscles and things i rather keep secrecy about. Yes, monitoring what the hell that feeling is. Nobody ever noticed. Anger is out of control yet my life is hell because i need to be very secretive. The less people know about your life the less they can destroy.
I think that when we first start delving into our own psychology, that we start to develop the tendency to analyze it - and then for many of us, we recognize that it allows us to separate ourselves from the emotions and what we're feeling - and becomes a defense mechanism, particularly if we're the analytical type. This seems like it would be especially true if we believe our responses to feeling certain emotions to be unhealthy or stemmed from childhood experiences. I think it can help to identify it and detach from it (a bit), so that we can allow ourselves to have a healthier response.
This is something that even myself, as a therapist, struggles with. Learn more about my experience: ruclips.net/video/s_4bBcCfm1w/видео.html
I ❤ your polo shirt Kati, amazing colours & patterns.
Yes I heard your experiences in the past videos. Will surely listen more.
Plenty of us were raised with the whole “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”
I wrote this exact thing in all caps in the front of my journal
my brain: let me buy a book about how to feel my feelings and then register for a workshop about how to feel my feelings and then do a degree in how to feel my feelings then become a world renowned researcher and public speaker about how to feel my feelings, all while not actually feeling my feelings. yeah that's a good plan!!!!
hahahha yes this is me 100%
This couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I’m so stuck in my own head at the moment.
I hope it helps!!! xoxox
@@Katimorton you are helping me more than I could possibly express right now. Thank you for being you.
Well HELL!!!! I literally just had the conversation with my therapist that I needed to take myself back to kindergarten and learn all of the emotions/feelings again because I can't pinpoint how I FEEL. Smh. Its crazy. Thank you so so so so soooooo much for your content. You've provided some key things to help with my personal diagnosis.
I feel the EXACT same way!
My therapist asks me how I'm feeling in the beginning and I cannot pull an "I dunnooo" because she has the feelings wheel laminated right there for the looking.
@@SpAcEdOuT1994 Hmmm that's not a bad idea actually .... 🤔🤔🤔 Does it help you at all?
This is all so much turmoil over illusions...of self, and idenfication, etc. You will get so tired of chasing shadows, you will realize there is a simple solution: let go. You are not your emotions. If they wander in, let them wander back out of your mind.
I think you have to get rid of stuck feelings first by noticing and feeling them. Otherwise, it's just another bypass. The emotions need to be expressed.
I grow up not to show emotions,feelings I was not aloud to speak my mind
I had to learn how to
It is still a struggle but I getting there still struggle to show joy and emotions thanks for sharing this it helps
You're certainly not alone 🙏
I think I would be crying or sad a major part of my days if I was always in my feelings. Learned to push feelings aside and tough it up for the sake of living. Being highly sensitive in a concrete jungle surrounded by predators and wolf packs leaves your nervous system constantly in high alert, burned out with deep pain in your chest area. It’s difficult to breathe deeply and I constantly forget to take a breath, just freeze it and then I have to consciously take a few mindful breaths
Hey I think we get hypersensitive because they are things about ourselves we are not willing to confront, that we repress. Anytime someone makes a criticism or a comment, some wound resurfaces and we start externalizing and battling the world around us but really we need to look at the dragon inside in the eyes instead of running away. It's not "toughen it up" like you said, it's about being honest with oneself and bring up to consciousness what we have buried in the unconscious. Nobody is "sensitive" by birth, it's a trait that surfaces when too many emotions are bottled up. Bottling up the bottling is just a recipe for more problems
Fantastic info I'm totally guilty. My therapist has said: "You can't think your way through it, you have to feel your way through it." Thank you!!
I do that constantly... Then, Thinking that I'm actually in touch with my feelings when I'm not really feeling my feelings. I think that that's a mechanism that I have used over my life to try to understand feelings. In reality, I need to feel them in my heart. Thank you so much for your video!❤
Of course!! It can be so hard to even realize that we are just thinking about it rather than feeling it.. ugh :/ xox
It happens to the best of us 🙏
Having been in therapy multiple times (and currently for about a year) it is so incredibly hard to not make feelings cognitive, because there are quite a few exercises that make you ask specific questions about when, why, where, with whom, etc. you had a certain feeling.
It feels like, if you weren't allowed to feel your feelings as a child, the initial reaction to any strong emotion is always going to be to suppress it first. Then, if you're lucky and therapy works for you, you learn to circle back around to the feeling and analyze it a bit, but by then it's already muddied with secondary emotions and cognitive judgments.
My point is that it makes me really sad that it'll probably never be easy or possible for some people to be in harmony with their emotions the same way a non-traumatized person probably is. :(
Great video, Kati. Thank you.
Gosh, she's a real good therapist.
KATI!!!! The questions at the end of the video are EXACTLY what my psychologist was asking me yesterday .....😮
I looked up things to identify why I was experiencing certain feelings, and learning to define what feelings I feel.
Hi thank you for spreading some wisdom in this world. I intellectualize a lot but I've found a trick that really helps, if I ever feel anxiety, an urge to start reading/googling/eating/smoking/redditing when I feel something uncomfortable: I do nothing for 5 minutes. Just nothing. Lying in bed, sitting, starring at an object, doesnt matter. It counteracts the escapism. Instead of fidgeting and moving around and do whatever to distract myself, that makes me stop fleeing for 5 minutes and I get closer to what's really going on and it calms me a lot
Good thoughts. I’ll buy some books and do research on this subject and get all perspectives.
This video made me cry so many times. You hit the nail right on the head. I do this all the time, and I have trouble identifying my emotions, or I suppress them because they aren’t convenient at that moment. I work so hard that I crash because I don’t actually process what I feel. I believe my childhood let me to behave like that, but also my comorbid diagnoses of Autism, ADHD and depression.
Damn. I knew I did this but not the name for it. I hope to get better at feeling my emotions with the tips you offered. Thank you so much for this video and putting a name to something I’m struggling so hard with ❤
I think alot of people struggle with feelings myself included and I've always viewed myself as emotionally sensitive and I am aware of all the things I do, painfully so. Feeling feelings has been discouraged by others many times in my life and I was told logic was the way and being in control of your emotions was important. While I think a good balance of logic and emotion would be best, I;m really glad to know I'm not alone in trying to be better and understand myself more. Thank you for making this video, I hope it helps other's the way it has me!
It is insane how well intellectualization sits with me. If it's logical how the hell could it be wrong - logically its impossible. I guess there is more to being human than plain old rationality.
now i do the same type of enabling in my own relationships and there are so much more toxic at times than my own family environment growing up. But there is hope, ive been working on myself and learning about all these different things and healthy relationships, boundaries, self esteem, self worth and mutual respect that are so important in any relationship
This is something I have had a very difficult time with over the years and it seems to be getting worse. I have never been able to articulate or understand what was happening to share with my therapist. This has helped a lot. Thank you
Wow! This resonates deeply - I turn very quickly to obsessing over researching and self help books. 😅 I finally started getting back into my body about a year ago when I started doing yoga and cried during nearly each shavasana. This is a great reminder for me to keep up on getting back into my body and NOT living in my head. Thank you 🙏🏻
I spent my adolescence and twenties trying to "self-help book" my way through what I wasn't able to process or feel.
Isn't it incredibly confusing when it doesn't actually work and the struggle remains... only coated in layers and layers of intellectual understanding....making it even harder to dig into those actual feelings?!
I have struggled with feelings most of my life. Feelings were not allowed in my family of origin. Went to therapy and 12-step recovery for years, all helpful. ACA has helped so much with getting to the bottom of it. Writing has been a great tool. Learning to allow the feelings to surface, to not push them away, to not be afraid of them... so helpful. ❤
Same, same, same for me! I have been intellectualizing since my early childhood. I am 44 years old and I almost died from sikness, then fell in depression. This change my perspective, I can feel now, not only think and culpabilze about feelings I should feel. Its hard to feel fear, grief, anxiousness, sadness and pain, but I begin to live a new and real life.
Yes. I suffer from intellectualization to avoid actually feeling emotions. Thank God for therapists like you, Kati, who have helped me, over years, to learn to actually feel my feelings. It wasn't until last year that I experienced rage. That required going to a deep tissue massage therapist in conjunction with EMDR (I am recovering from from c-PtSD and Scrupulosity/Religious OCD.
Overcoming these complexes and syndromes required sustained self-examination in support groups as well as 1-1 therapy. The good news is: we *can* recover.
Damn, I can just say daaammmnnnn. This is exactly what I do every time. Thanks for your help 🎉
This is wonderful! Whenever anyone has told me to “just let my emotions be” I had no idea how to?? This has given me a way to attempt it now! Thank you ❤❤❤
The way you teared up at the Brene Brown story--I get this so deeply! Even the power of a Story of connection is extremely impactful.
Aaaaahhh! This is so me! I didn’t even realise I was doing this! Thank you - I’d get cross myself with myself. Like obviously I hadn’t gotten all the facts or done enough journaling because I’m still not feeling good! This video had helped to pull together some of the thoughts and ideas I’ve been having. Thank you 🙏
Your advice is always so sage and timely.🌱I am a visionary arts professor/🖌️creativity coach. I’ve developed post traumatic growth activations using flow techniques like: psychic automatism painting, ecstatic sand dancing, root balancing/ballet, and egg shaker bilateral stimulation (which are all great Stimming activities that help one creatively associate with one’s innate emotions.) I hope some of these techniques help others too.🏝️Keep up the great work!🪷
I do this. I'm In therapy for generalized anxiety, but Childhood emotional neglect and abuse leaves me where I don't recognize thoughts from feelings, codependent, etc... . Dr. Tori Olds is awesome for IFS, Katie, your vids are great and helpful. My own therapist is awesome and is my current favorite person in the world. But, yeah, I'm intellectualizing my wits out.
This is so helpful. I never knew there was a name or reason behind what I did. I've approached my entire life as a problem to be solved; I always looked for the reason/solution/answer to what I was feeling so that I could understand it in order to work through it. Doing so validated my feelings - like I wasn't feeling these things because I was crazy - there was a legit reason behind them and so it made it ok. I have to often give myself permission to just sit in my feelings now, but turning to research or picking them apart to find the root of them is still a strong pull - but at least I'm aware of it now.
This video came up at the best time. My homework for therapy today was to think about what my defense mechanisms are, and this pretty much confirms intellectualization is my primary instinct.
Also another great thing is that im trying to parent communicate and illustrate to my own children the importance of them knowing that they are always enough for me this world everything, and that i believe in them, support them, care about them, are here for them and love them no matter what happens. And explaining to them that not succeeding and failing are good things as the make you better at something for trying and putting in the work at it and that when you succeed later by putting in more work and effort the success will be that much more meaningful and important and will give you the confidence to go on and do more and bigger things next.
i never had a word for it until now, but intellectualising is exactly what i've been doing. i knew there that it was something that was not helping my case but i never thought of it as a negative coping mechanism.
Well if im being genuinely honest; I would say I'm intellectually promiscuous...idk if that legitimately makes sense or not; meaning that I tend to seek out all sorts of bias .... but that being said; I believe we all have a responsibility to want to check in with ourselves and ask ourselves 'is what I'm doing working?' It might seem like a complicated question, but of course, I've never believed anything is an exact science, and therefore, if something doesn't feel right or is not serving us well anymore...then sometimes it's best to just walk away (however depending on the specific situation at present - it's also important not to be reckless). On the other hand, sometimes it can be good as my new profile name suggests: 'embrace the struggle'. And lbh; we all just have to come to the realization that what works for one person might not work for another...and that's ok. Even with how my ways of thinking and feeling are from time to time; I still hold the belief that we should all try to be kind and set healthy boundaries (even though it's easier said than done).
Your videos are the most helpful! Thanks for what you do.
I have struggled with intellectualizing my feelings my whole life. I tracked it down to a time in my past where a parent who preached rationality and objectivity (very science-minded) had a habit of telling others in the family what they “had a right” to feel. Almost like feelings had to be “earned” or they have to come from an intellectually solid position before they were okay. But by the time I’d figured out whether it was okay for me to feel, the moment had gone and I’d rationalized them away.
The whole reason I even found your channel was on a quest to figure out if my feelings about something in my life were right or wrong, or if I was (a very specific kind of) bad person for feeling the way I was feeling.
I’ve made an effort to be a very attentive “parent” to my feelings - I’ll drop whatever I’m doing and turn my attention towards them simply because I know how easy it is for them to feel unwanted/neglected, so then they run and hide. Pausing right then and there to acknowledge them - as if they’re skittish children who have been neglected in the past - helps them trust that I’ll attend to them reliably. Maybe in the future, I can safely ask them to wait a moment if I’m occupied, but for now, I coddle them by always pausing and giving them several minutes to be heard.
THANK YOU! I'm the one who asked this related question last week. I did help me try to stop. Three out of four ebooks from the library were related to my trauma. Returned those books and started trying to focus on my here and now. Not ready for those feeling but working on it. Of course, I noticed then that I was trying to intellectualize my intellectualization, hahaha. 🤔
I don’t allow myself to cry. I don’t allow myself to feel dysregulated or have a bad day. I think the reason behind why I feel uncomfortable is, “I’m not allowed to do this. I shouldn’t be kind to myself when I feel this way. I feel the need to limit myself because I’m feeling this way. I’m wrong for feeling this way, and I’m only deserving of love and kindness when I’m not feeling this way.” Those are some of the reasons behind why I feel so uncomfortable.
Completely, agree. Excellently worded @siennaprice1351 ❤.
So spot-on, this is a regular topic with my therapist.
36-M, Where I live there are limited resources for therapy...you seem to be genuinely real and relatable. Learning to feel my feelings is one of my issues and this has been the best explanation so far. Thank you!!!
I’ve been struggling with this since I can remember, which has led to a ton of fossilised feelings. I still catch myself trying to feel through my thoughts, which will lead to confusion and misunderstanding. But I will be more vigilant and try to really feel those emotions from now on.
thank you as always Kati
I like the editing on this video! And the topic itself was surprisingly relatable. Thank you for your work. I'm happy we all have you to help. It means a lot. 💚
Wow, this opened up more for me, as im currently on my path of self discovery towards trauma healing. Thank you so much, for always helping,always being real and honest and human😊❤
@Katimorton the hardest part for me is letting go after I’ve intellectualized. Like you said, which I really resonated with was “You’re so aware of your harmful behaviors that you can’t get yourself to stop doing them”. It’s also hard for me to tame the research beast lol I have OCD and it’s one of my biggest compulsions. I didn’t realize until your video that I’m plugging away right now trying to understand how to get on top of my disorder from all angles, trying to get to the bottom of it. It’s all just a defense mechanism as you said! This was the best video I heard on feeling your feelings by far because you aren’t saying this is easy, but you are telling us it’s important and is a way for us to connect with ourselves and others better. There’s so much that I learned, thank you!!! And I would love to do one of your workshops, can I email you about finding one that is best for me? Thanks!
This is such an informative video that couldn’t have come at a better time. When I find myself trying to intellectualise my feelings the best thing I have found is meditation. It slows me down and allows me to sit with my feelings and be an observer rather than a doer. I’m really trying to work on being more present and in the moment rather than always looking for solutions. I find once I’m present and in touch with my feelings they start to fade away. Like you mentioned, the more we try to repress them, the stronger they become. Meditation has helped me be more mindful and made me sit with those sometimes uncomfortable feelings that often pass faster when acknowledged. Thanks Katie for another great video and I hope we can all get better and feeling our feelings. ❤️
Sheesh…. Now I understand why my therapist would get upset at me when I would take notes during sessions instead of really doing the work. I thought I was doing the work??? I guess the tears need to flow and the anger needs to be moved through. Thank you for explaining this!
You are brilliant! This just connected so many dots for me. Thank you!
Absolutely. Probably my biggest problem. The harder of a time I&m having the more I distance myself from it thinking I'm "solving" it. In truth I'm trying to save myself because facing it is too hard. ANd then I wonder why I'm only getting worse... Because there is no solution to sadness. And it can be overwhelming and feel hopeless, so this removes that feeling, even though it doesn't help us. Our minds can play such tricks on us.
Papillon, yes this is something I've been asking myself in recent memory and especially over the years as well ... and with what is going on in concern to the news, all the global conflicts, inflation, and a horrendous economy; I think it can be very easy to get tangled up in such thought provoking headlines and trends. And social media can be quite ambiguous when it comes to seeking all the proper information and bias ... but with that being said; it can be difficult to navigate through all the different distractions that are omnipresent, and I've learned to become more self reliant when it comes to short-term and prolonged stress...as such I've been saving some of my income in spots I can't really tell much of anybody about - otherwise I'd be in deep trouble, lol...but anyways, my whole point is that I've been trying to start my own business with the realization that things probably aren't going to get any better economically - and I believe that is very much relevant with 'we' as the 'human race' tend to overthink and complicate things (and I still do myself from time to time) although I often have to tell myself that it's no one else's responsibility other than 'mine' to want to do something about how I'm feeling and how I choose to process information...and as a neurodivergant person, I often have difficulty being able to self-regulate with even the most basic habits; but I can assure you that it's something I'm working in, even if it's not coming naturally right away; I realize that this won't be something that can be accomplished overnight, and I'm just going to need to understand that this will take gradual practice. And I know I've had a lot to say up to this point, but if you made it this far reading all of this, I just wanna say thank you and always know you're not alone, and just try and be faithful, even in the toughest and most turbulent times 🙏
I analyse each moment. My feelings. But that further makes me hear that Linkin Park song In The End. Really kept no stone unturned. Love from India.
Thank you so much for sharing
This was a vulnerable video, being so honest.
Oh my goodness! I feel so open just by watching you tell me how we intellectualize our lives. So now in tears and with gladness, thank you.
Great content. Thank you! I can relate ;) never realized the lack of feelings like elation/happiness was protection! Makes perfect sense
Thank you for this untalked topic. Very helpful Kati. Thank you again for sharing all your experience with so many people who cant afford therapy. Your a role model
Thank you for the video I’ve been thinking instead of feeling as a way to cope and intellectualizing after a very traumatic experience I think 💭 I’m
Not feeling enough
Get out of my head! Lol wow this really spoke to me! I literally was planning on going to the store to buy The Artist's Way today 😂
Of course, this is where l'm at listening to this video. Trying to make sense of what l am feeling. Trying to take the middle path rather then take one polar view of what I am feeling. (DBT skills can help).
Found cognitive behavioral therapy helpful since it talks about reframing your negative thought and emotions and how to deal with them
Yes!! That's the best therapy to help with this! Thank you so much for sharing :) xoxo
Interesting, CBT always comes across to me as thinking rather than feeling.
ive been watching you for many years.. this is the first time i've commented... and right now i'm struggling a lot more than i think I ever have... but i'm finding it hard to feel things. My partner is in ICU and is struggling.
I need to find some energy to get out of the house, to get myself out of bed and have a walk or talk to someone...
It'll be a slow process but i'll get there, listening to you really helps and I can't thank you enough for your talks x
Sometimes just 'saying' it helps you commit yourself to doing some of the things. That sounds like a heavy load. Wishing you the best, give yourself grace (and Ill try to take my own advice!)
I can relate to this. I lost my grandma a year ago and I'm just starting to feel it. Since i have major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, it's difficult to identify my emotions and then feel safe enough to feel them. My family handled their sadness in private and anger was expressed often due my brother's intellectual disability. I've decided that burying my emotions isn't healthy for me, so I'll keep working on it.
SO good! Maybe I'm just ready to hear it, but well said!
Thanks Heather. I hope you have a great week!
When I had a lot of anxiety and jealousy and felt miserable because of that strong flow, I listened to a book that explained why people feel these things and what are the techniques to overcome them, and it really help me
I need to understand what happened, why and so on, if not I won't let it go. My concern is to avoid it from happening again in the future. But I also feel it, I feel a lot! I have hyper empathy, so.. I am autistic and ADHD, and is the way I process. Once in my life I didn't allowed myself to feel pain if it didn't make sense. Abusers loved that. People would debate me into doing and feeling what they wanted, bc I couldn't "debunk them". I have always been very naive and logical. Only recently I've learned that I don't need to understand why it hurts. If it hurts, it hurts. Then I will remove myself from that situation, remove access and so on. But after I have allowed myself to feel it, I will intellectualize the situation (so I've been told that is what I am doing). If not, if I don't understand what happened, it will for sure happen again.
“You only chew. You don’t digest.” It’s way easier to feel feelings when you have awe in your life that you share with someone. Most people would benefit from cultivating it intentionally. It is one of the fastest ways to build trust and let people in so they can see you feeling them. Speaking from experience.
The clenching anxiety is tough. I have to remember to be thoughtful of my own body in a way.
Yup, this is me 100%
Thank you omg I really needed to hear this 🥺
I do the exact same thing as you, Kati. I am working on feeling my feelings in therapy and it is really hard. I know and feel safe with my therapist. I did start to cry in session but I held back a lot. Like you say it's a process not perfection.
I definitely struggle with this. Thank you for bringing it up. As I'm listening to you, I'm reminded that no one ever asked me how I felt about something when I was growing up. It was always, "what do you think?" I think I'm afraid of my feelings because my feelings weren't validated when I was a kid, and I was even told that I wasn't feeling what I was actually feeling. Ugh. That's a terrible place to be as a child.
Thinking just feels safer. 😂😢
Love the pacing excitement!
I do this as well, but when I can look at every perspective I can make sense of what's going wrong and why I may feel a certain way. Once I can sort out that info I can actually feel things.
My therapist has been trying to get me to "feel my feelings" for over a year with not much success. They break through occasionally and are quite painful but my default defense mechanism is anger so that quickly and automatically swoops in and saves me the hurt I know is there.
I can't consciously let my feelings out because I've suppressed them for so long that I feel like if I pull just one finger out of the dike the entire thing will collapse and I'll be submerged so deeply that I'll never make it back.
Thank God that i emotionally outgrown Borderline a bit. In my teens and 20's it was very intense. I am the sensitive type. I am perceptive and very little judgemental.
Story of my life. Being highly emotionally intelligent and being a smart ass and always analysing and being aware if everything going on in my head yet never really feeling it. Always examining them but never just feeling them. I used too but they were too much or dismissed or people couldn't handle them or they would try kill me because of the intensity. Trouble is i have so much over lapping stuff. With D.I.D rhen being a HSP and also an empath. So I'm rather rare and they all kinda merge into quite a complex thing. I'm trying to feel again but you get so used to being numb or cold or just negative stuff it's hard to just be happy like an alien emotionm i tried to work out how i was feeling during video but typically i couldn't tell anything like i was just hollow. I keep flip flopping around with hating the world to now knowing i have to allow myself to feel and not close off and be the vulnerable person i wanna but ao much trauma just keeps making me shutdown.
Like what do you do when your feelings are so intense and interlocking and deep? I just wanna be able to feel again and be in the moment but like i forgot how to do it. All my brain does is just think forever but being in the moment is near impossible.
im dealing with some shit right now and IDK if 'the algorithm' somehow knew or its just dumb luck but... this hit a spot
I’ve always had this problem and it’s just gotten worse as I get older. Even with therapy, I can identify the feelings, identify the body responses, but my brain just shuts it down. It seems like my parents always lived by a philosophy of “the world doesn’t stop, so you can’t either.” If a feeling is going to slow you down, then we just need to put it aside and keep working on what’s in front of us… but the world never stops so you never get to go back to them.
I grew up with a lot of anger that I could not have possibly expressed. Subsequent bouts of family therapy confirmed this. So harboring resentment kind of became a way of life for me. When I was in the Army I was mad at the Army because I felt like I had been screwed on my contract. Then at school I was angry at this girl who camped out by my door and constantly ran me down. I probably could have stopped her if I had really wanted to. I've found that twelve step groups are a good place to process anger, but you don't want to get too self pitying there. In AA they say, "Resentments are the number one offender." That is especially true in my case.
One good thing about dual diagnosis rehabilitation is that they make you actually make you write down 3 feelings 2x a day and share it with the group. That's 30 days of feelings and I still suck at it
I love this video SOOOOOOO much, holy shit this is so true...
Love your videos, Kati!!! Could you do a video on emotional numbness, please? 😃
Thank you for this video it resonates with e deeply.
My favorite self-description of feelings (usually to help those who do not wish to feel them, like myself) is that they are like barometric readings. They are data on our experience. We do not smash or kick or suppress barometers for what they tell us, even if they tell us we should cancel today's parade.
I say that to say this: there is still an intellectual component to reading barometric data and then figuring out what to do with it. But what's different - and I think this is the workbookitis you have described - is that reading up on *how a barometer works* isn't the same as reading *what a barometer says,* or learning how our day should be affected by what it says.
Something like that, maybe? I dunno...
I've done this for 20 years, and even though I've been aware that I'm doing this for a loong time, I have only been able to stop doing this after 2 years of therapy and for a short period of 2 months. I miss not intelectualizing. I'm working towards being able to feel fully again. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm a long way there. Sometimes feelings flow through me and I'm able to just feel them.
I used to be so, so good at not feeling my feelings at all. I lost that skill to some extent and I have been miserable ever since. I am doing my very best to ignore them but I can't. I know what the emotions are telling me and there is nothing I can do to fix things or make them better. If I could stop feeling my feelings, I would be so much happier. I don't understand why so many people say "feel your feelings" when that means I am condemned to constant, unyielding misery.
Nothing has resonated stronger with me then this!!!!!!! 😘💕 Thank you so much for describing this experience as, it has being a struggle for me..
Basically since my second- year of early education, most of my life essentially! Said with love and kindness 🙂 For me that emotion is Vulnerability I don't like it.....
..one bit, not the feeling of being excited but just feeling of been sad,/ crying, the feeling of letting someone into your world and life, only to have them reject you.....
Or ghost you 😘♡♡ The way someone feels about excitement it's the same way I feel about connection and vulnerability/ sadness it feels unsafe and crying..
Can feel icky but cathartic at the same time, in terms of feeling sad
NVC helped me to practice self empathy and empathy towards others. Listening to feelings and needs, looking behind the thoughts. It's a journey xD
I guess it's a balance between finding the right tool and get to use them when needed.
I've certainly been intelectualizing, but for the purpose of getting a toolkit I can use, because my toolbox was kind of empty, and only very broken tools to find xD
Ugh I tend to do this so much... But having BPD is like sailing an angry sea of emotions and huge crashing waves of other emotions, it's like a storm at the sea. I had to learn to let those feelings go through me even if they felt like I was collapsing. I allowed myself to have a crisis in a controlled way to let them flow... Intellectualizing it's a way to separate myself from being drawn from those strong tides of emotions, it feels like a self discovery.
The issue is the same, a tale as old as time: finding the grey area. How do I come to that grew area? Ty Kati, I was hesitant to click this notification and watch it. But it's what I needed.
Kia ora from New Zealand i have been watching lots of videos this year. And got your book just recently read it in day well listen to it yay Audible. This video is my well shit moment. This is fully what i do.
Still need to lean how to feel..........
Sending much Aroha
Love ya work ❤
This sounds a lot like me. The only thing i would add to the list is to first get rid of the emotion, then do a deep dive into getting as much information about it so i can mimic it when needed around safe people. The feeling wheel is great for figuring out emotions out and tying them together. My therapist is amazed how i can talk about all my trauma with no emotional reactions. One of the things we plan on trying is focusing on emotions, not the trauma. Sounds intriguing and something i would try cause it is not those bad ones of happiness and such. Those seem very unrealistic. Emotions as a whole seem like a waste of energy and mind power. But like you talked about, they keep building up inside, and the vaults are full. I'm not sure how many vults the mind will let you have before exploding. So, it is either doing emotional work or exploding within.
Thank you for your suggestions and thoughts on this.
I always feel I handle my feelings better when I understand them more…… 🤦🏽♀️ yep best way to avoid them. Sigh
Thank you kati 🙏
Intellectualization, what a fancy word for over-thinking. I'm in on the band-waggon of intelletualization. I have been told many times by a friend that I don't allow myself to feel my feelings. I do not want to loose control over myself. So I analyze, and analyze, and collect evidence to the point it would hold up in court. Until ... analysis paralysis. Until I've nearly forgotten why the process started at all. So, here it is, peace. I've done all that was possible, and it is no longer important.
Analysis soothes me, it is order in chaos. Analysis was the key process during my professional life, now in retirement I can use the skill to structure feelings and build a causal chain.
Great video Kate
Yes, i can feel conflicted about feelings for certain people. I do get body somathic symptoms with very tense muscles and things i rather keep secrecy about. Yes, monitoring what the hell that feeling is. Nobody ever noticed. Anger is out of control yet my life is hell because i need to be very secretive. The less people know about your life the less they can destroy.
I needed this😢
I promise promise that i will try to feel these feelings specifically pain and grief ATM with the help of my therapist.
This is unfortunate because for me exploring that feeling - that feeling just never seems to go away
I think that when we first start delving into our own psychology, that we start to develop the tendency to analyze it - and then for many of us, we recognize that it allows us to separate ourselves from the emotions and what we're feeling - and becomes a defense mechanism, particularly if we're the analytical type. This seems like it would be especially true if we believe our responses to feeling certain emotions to be unhealthy or stemmed from childhood experiences. I think it can help to identify it and detach from it (a bit), so that we can allow ourselves to have a healthier response.
I usually try and find a youtube video on the subject to not feel crazy.... oh wait.
this is so ironic 😂 but same
Overthinking over analyzing separates the body from the mind.