Tuning In to Your Body

Learning to express rather than withhold what you feel is a three step process. An important first step is to identify your feelings. Once this awareness and your ability to identify feelings has developed, the second step is learning to express them and then once you've given some expression to your feelings, you're ready for the third and final step: communicating them to whomever you perceive to have contributed to 'triggering' these particular emotions (and the book discusses further ways to express and communicate feelings, but for here the focus is on the first step: developing an awareness and ability to identify feelings).

In terms of Identifying feelings, this is broken up into 3 further steps: 1. Recognize the symptoms of suppressed feelings. 2. "Tune in" to your body. 3. Discriminate the exact feeling.

The technique Bourne suggests for "Tuning In" to Your Body follows:

Feelings tend to be held in the body, so to become aware of them, it is necessary to switch gears out of staying "in your head" and make time to tune in to your body. This process is based on "experiential focusing" developed by Eugene Gendlin.

    a. Physically relax. It's difficult to know what you're feeling if your body is tense and your mind is racing. Spend 5-10 minutes doing progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, or some other relaxation technique to slow yourself down.

    b. Ask yourself, "what am I feeling right now?" or alternatively, "What is my main problem or concern right now?"

    c. Tune in to that place in your body where you feel emotional sensations such as anger, fear, or sadness. Often this will be in the area of your heart or your gut (stomach/diaphragm), although it may be other areas higher or lower in the body. This is your "inner place of feelings."

    d. Wait and listen to whatever you can sense or pick up on your place of feelings. Don't try to analyze or judge what's there. Be an observer and allow yourself to sense any feelings or moods that are waiting to surface. Simply wait until something emerges.

    e. If you draw a blank on steps c and d or are still stuck in your head (your thoughts are racing), go back to Step a and start over again. Most likely you need more time to relax. A few minutes of slow, deep breathing will often help to increase your awareness of your feelings.

    f. Once you've obtained a general sense of what you're feeling, it may help you to make it seem more concrete by answering the following questions:
        Where in my body is this feeling?
        What is the shape of this feeling?
        What is the size of this feeling?
        If this feeling had a color, what would it be?

If, after taking the time to relax and tune in to what you're feeling, you still have only a vague sense of what's there, it may be useful to look at a list of "feeling words" to help you identify the exact feeling you're experiencing.