The Power of Emotions
Why Feeling Matters
I wanted to explore emotions, feelings, sensations — and why it’s so important for us to feel them. Emotion, sensation, feelings, energy — and energy wants to move. Trauma creates a split; it keeps the emotion in place, keeps the sensation stuck. It’s this kind of dormant energy, energy that’s out of reach — just a kind of numbness. I can’t even feel it.
If we are able to find ways to feel the emotion and sensation within ourselves, to be seen, to be witnessed — which helps us feel those sensations and emotions within ourselves — the energy is able to move and release and alchemise into new life, new creation. It’s like a birthing of something different. I get a vision of seeds and new life springing forth through the soil. But that new life can only come forth if we are able to feel, to go to and meet the sensation and energy of the past, of the trauma.
I really love this quote by Prentis Hemphill: “With trauma we will continue reproducing it until we understand this. Nothing ever really goes away.” I just find that so powerful. Nothing ever really goes away. So until we are really able to fully drop into sensation, to feel, to feel safe enough to feel — we circle round and round. We loop. It doesn’t matter how many times we might question our thinking or try to feel a different way, we find ourselves looping back to that same place. Until we feel. Until we are able to really be with the feelings.
Even therapy can get this wrong
And it’s so hard, because even the world of therapy is changing dramatically now — there’s so much focus on just changing how you think. So many of us go into therapy to fix the feeling. Like, oh, I’ve got these awful feelings — which then tells us, oh my God, I must be broken, what’s wrong with me? And sometimes even therapists would say, yes, let’s use this to fix this issue.
It’s hard because we’re born into a world that is already traumatised — but of course we don’t know that, because it feels normal. Everyone’s doing it. The norm is that certain feelings are not okay to feel. Most of us are raised by parents who have learned this too — it’s gone through the line. No one is at fault here. But we’re raised by parents who don’t know how to feel particular feelings, or who deny them, or hide them.
We go to school where most of us — and this is true for me and for most of my clients — are not taught about emotions. We are not shown healthy expression of emotion. There’s so much denial and repression already in our culture, and I know cultures vary, but especially in the Western world — we are born into this energy that is numbed down, a denial of this energy. And what does that do? It keeps the past in place. We cycle round and round in the past by not finding ways to be with it.
Feeling is a radical act
And so — when we are able to start to feel all the different sensations and emotions within us, it’s a radical act. It’s a revolution. It’s the creation of new life. It’s finally bringing movement where there was none.
This is the opposite of nothing ever really going away — until we start feeling.
I may have made that sound simple, and it’s not. Because we are born into cultures that mainly show us it’s not okay to feel those feelings. So we’ve had years and years of being that way. Our bodies have beautifully adapted to not feel, to split off from certain feelings, to numb out. So when you come to a place of understanding — okay, I know I need to feel — it’s not simple. We’ve spent so many years doing the opposite. The mind has become really strong. Thinking and thoughts can feel like everything.
The mind’s horror story
And what happens with that? The thoughts tell us stories. For many of us, when those feelings feel intense — when they feel really big because we haven’t felt them for so long and they’re kind of crying to be met, almost like this life force energy coming to the surface — that’s actually a really exciting moment. But most of us don’t know that. I know I didn’t.
We interpret it as something wrong. The mind interprets it as: something is wrong with me. Oh my God, what’s happening? I’m broken. I’m going to die. I’m going into the void. I’m going to lose everyone. The mind does the exact opposite of what’s needed. That is the voice of trauma, and that is the voice that keeps the energy stuck in place — so that nothing ever really goes away.
Unless we realise that maybe that voice isn’t true. Or maybe someone helps us realise — you know what, those voices aren’t true.
So I really want to stress this to any of you who are going through this: that moment where the mind’s horror story comes up about what will happen if you feel — it’s not true. It’s the moment of the peak, like a crescendo of this feeling. And that’s the point when the mind kicks in and goes, oh my God, no, no, no, don’t go there.
And if we are able to really allow ourselves that peak — it then starts to naturally move. The energy starts to move through us, shifting through the body. There’s a releasing. There’s a change. That’s the alchemy. That’s the moment of alchemy — right there, just around the time when the thoughts get really strong and tell us, oh my God, I’m going to die or I’m going insane.
The moment of alchemy
How is it to know that that is the potential moment of your alchemy? That if we are able to take a different path — not run away, not numb it out with food or shopping or the phone — and we are able to just stay with the sensation, the emotion in our bodies, and allow that emotion to move through — that is a moment of alchemy. That’s the radical act. That’s the revolution. Suddenly something can go. The energy can move. The energy can move into new life, new creation.
If we are able to meet our emotions and sensations in the opposite way we have experienced them in the past — if we are able to meet these feelings from a place of unconditional love, not trying to get rid of them, not having an agenda — then in a way we’re getting out of the way. We’re getting out of the way for our body to do what it naturally knows how to do.
And this is the beautiful thing: our bodies know how to alchemise, to create these shifts. We just had to learn a different way to adapt. So now it’s almost like we’re teaching ourselves to learn again. How do I step back and out of the way? How do I allow my body to feel safe enough so that the emotions and sensations can start to move through me and be released?
You are welcome here
How do I feel safe enough to allow that? What can make me feel kind and loving enough to allow it? So many of us come to these feelings from the voice of trauma — oh no, this awful feeling, what’s wrong, I’ve got to get rid of it, come on, are you still here, not this again. The voice of trauma is always rushing. It wants everything to be fixed now.
And how would it be to come from a different voice, a different way of being, which is: you are welcome here.
As if we are opening the door to a little girl or a little boy who is distressed, and saying: it’s okay, come in, come and sit on my lap, let me hold you. You’re really welcome here.
And there’s something in that that creates safety. You may feel it within yourself — just check in. How is it to imagine treating the feelings and sensations in your body that way? To imagine those sensations as the younger ones within ourselves, and to treat them with such care, such kindness, such gentleness. Not pushing. Not forcing. The opposite of shame.
How do we do that? That’s the question we can ask ourselves when we’re with an emotion and it feels like we can’t. When there’s a sense of I’m stuck. That’s when we know there’s something there — some judging of the emotion. How is it to approach that differently?
Feeling safe enough to feel
And I think the other piece is about feeling safe enough to feel. Because when we feel safe enough, the nervous system starts to calm down, starts to regulate. And in that more regulated place, the emotion can come, the sensation is there — and then there’s the movement, the alchemy.
So what can help us feel safe? That’s a question you could ask yourself. What helps you feel more ease, more safe, to feel? For most of us it is some sort of connection to a loving being. And for some of us that’s not available — so it could be a plant, a tree, something in nature. It could be a sense of spirit, of angels, whatever feels like something you can connect to. Anything that represents love or kindness for you.
And if so, how would it be to connect to that loving kindness energy? Can you do that? Can you imagine loving eyes, or a particular friend, or sitting by a beautiful tree, or a moment in time that felt really loving — or even just a sense, an idea, of love? And I’m thinking of Tara Brach here and her sense of the big self. How would it be to let yourself feel that?
A loving hand
The final thing I’d add: bringing a hand to the area where you feel sensation or emotion in your body really helps. A loving hand. Really feeling what it feels like to bring your hand there. It slows everything down and allows.
My mind is often really fast, my breath shallow — and to really allow, to slow, to honour everything that’s showing up. Everything that’s showing up is intelligent. It has protected you. How would it be to honour that?
As we honour each part, each part feels safe enough to relax, for emotion to be there and to move through. So however you’re with whatever you’re with — really allowing it to be there. And if there’s a part of you that says I can’t, I don’t want to, I’m scared — return to that part. Meet it with the same welcome. You’re scared. It’s okay. Your fear is really, really welcome here.
And it may be that there’s just numbness. Nothing. A sense of dissociation. Please know that is something, even when it feels like nothing. See how it is to really allow the numbness, to honour the numbness. That numbness protected you when you were young. It’s there for a really good reason. We really want to respect every part that comes forward.
Getting curious
I love the word curiosity. It’s such a beautiful way to approach what we feel — so opposite to how we normally are with ourselves. To get curious. I’m so curious. You’re really welcome here. It may be really minute sensations. And how is it just to allow that — as if you really want to taste the sensation? What is that? Really allowing yourself to feel it.
And you may notice that when you’re able to do that, it moves. This is really important. That’s the opposite of trauma.
And once you start to realise that — once you find you’re able to be with even the big feelings, the big emotions, and you realise you got through it and you survived, and it was nothing like your mind was telling you — you start to feel more and more brave. Your capacity gets bigger. To feel all the different emotions and sensations. And as your capacity gets bigger, you’ll have a bigger capacity to feel joy, to let new life come in, to feel inspired, to feel creative. And to be okay when the harder, more painful emotions are there. You may start to honour those emotions more, to respect them, to realise they know the way.
Trusting the body
And then it’s like you can trust more in your whole body — that it knows the way. You don’t have to try and fix everything outside of yourself or control everything outside of yourself. There’s this other place that can be met, where alchemy happens. Movement happens. New life is created.
When it feels like we’re stuck on the outside — we go within, and there’s this shift. New ways of being, beyond what we could ever imagine, until we start to feel.
And with that comes a sense of faith. I’ve known that for myself — a sense of faith that there is a way, and I trust it. Not what it looks like from the outside, from my vision of the world. There’s this other really potent, powerful place within my body.
And also together — there’s this huge potential of releasing in bigger traumas, bigger collective experiences. Wars. Awful atrocities. When we have a larger capacity, and we’re able to do this work in groups, we can do some really profound, deep, powerful work. And that is just so exciting — to know that alchemy can happen on a large scale, a universal scale, a one-to-one scale, in a group. The potential we have to create new life by allowing ourselves to meet the past stuck energies and allow them to move through.
So I’m hoping that may inspire you to look at yourself differently. To look at your feelings differently, your sensations differently. To treat yourself in a beautiful, loving, kind way whenever you notice feelings that in the past you may have fought against or disowned.