How We Become - A Therapeutic Guide for Reflection

If you are new to my Substack, I’m delighted to welcome you to How We Become – A Therapeutic Guide for Reflection. The best place to start is with the opening piece, which you can find here.

If you have read the previous four chapters, a very warm welcome back.

You may have noticed that we are slowly moving inwards.

First, I invited you to create a space where you feel better able to listen actively and talk effectively. This is of great importance in the self-exploration process to avoid remaining stuck in unhelpful reflective and communication patterns. We then looked at wider family history to broaden perspective, before moving into the more intimate exploration of early childhood relationships.

I have throughout these first chapters invited you to stay open and curious, and to notice yourself rather than to analyse and try to ‘fix’. I encourage you to continue with this mindset, and to allow understanding and compassion to occur from within, rather than being forced from the outside.

In this chapter we will explore emotions and feelings. You may be curious why I haven’t placed this chapter earlier on; wouldn’t it be handy to understand your emotions before looking at family and childhood history?

In their essence, emotions are there to guide you. However, they can also be experienced as messy and confusing, and exploring them without context can sometimes create further discord or be felt as too overwhelming.

As we enter this exploration, allow what you have learned so far to be your supporting foundation. Should you ever feel confused or overwhelmed, feel your feet on the ground and remind yourself of the riches of understanding that exists within your story.

Chapter 5: Emotions and Feelings

How do you feel?

How often have you been asked this question, and how often have you found it difficult to express?

Perhaps it’s the wrong person asking. Perhaps you don’t know. Perhaps you feel lots of things, but the intricacy does not lend itself to a simple answer.

Sometimes the way we feel is easy to understand and express, sometimes it’s confusing, diffuse – or even scary. You can feel angry and sad. Despairing and hopeful. Struck by grief and filled with laughter.

Feelings... Emotions... possibly the most profound thing about us, and something we all share – even with animals – yet it’s the thing we spend the least amount of time talking about with each other. Even in intimate relationships.

We use it as a greeting

How are you?

We use it in therapy

How does that make you feel?

We use it when we invite someone to open up

How are you really?

Such simple words. Such kind intentions. Sometimes so difficult to answer.

Emotions and Feelings

The words emotions and feelings are often used interchangeably but can carry important differences. The scientific understanding of these differences is nuanced and complex, but a helpful lens to use here is that emotions are immediate and instinctive reactions to what is happening around us or inside us, whereas feelings are states we consciously experience, shaped by how we relate to and interpret our own emotions.

One way to reflect on our emotion/feeling world, is to consider how we were met in our emotions as children.

Someone who receives good enough parenting, as in they may have experienced disruption and difficult experiences, but also consistent repair, attention and love, have a better chance of being able to reflect on, decipher and express their emotions without too much complexity (some complexity will always exist) in adulthood.

However, if emotions are consistently invalidated, rejected or misinterpreted by primary caregivers in childhood and adolescence, it can make it difficult to label, process or even trust them as adults.

For instance, if a person was met with indifference, anger or they were shamed for their sadness as a child, it could be that they experience contempt, shame or even overwhelming sadness when confronted with their own or others sadness in adulthood.

If they were met with rage, fear, or contempt when expressing anger as a child, it may bring tearfulness, self-doubt, sudden rage or shame when anger arises.

Simply put: If as a child the initial emotion of, for example sadness, is consistently met by a primary caregiver with anger, the interpreted feeling state could become shame or (self) contempt each time sadness emerges.

Important Nuance

It’s impossible to meet a child perfectly all the time. Life experiences, life stressors, illness, neurodiveristy; they all play a role in how emotions are expressed, processed and communicated.

Perhaps you had a very loving relationship with your parents, but they were both conflict shy and never quite knew how to deal with your anger. Or you remember your parents being patient and fun when you were a young child, but they had too many or too few boundaries when you were a teenager.

It does not have to be abuse or inherently ‘bad’ to have made an impact, and the process is not about who to blame as much as: what understanding can I find here to help me make a positive change?

Similarly if you are a parent, it is not about enforcing shame if you realise there were - or are - things you could or can do differently. Noticing, acknowledging and making shifts is the most important thing any parent can do. It is a gift both for you and for your child.

The Difficulty with Voicing Feelings

Imagine you are speaking to someone you know is going through a difficult time, and you ask them: How are you? You know that they are struggling, and perhaps you expect to hear I’m feeling sad, or I’m angry. Instead, you get ‘I don’t know.’ Then silence. You try to probe, but they are reluctant to share.

There could be many reasons for this. Perhaps they don’t feel safe enough in that moment. Perhaps it’s too overwhelming. Perhaps they feel ashamed of their darkness. Or perhaps they are experiencing a lightness right then, but saying ‘I feel good,’ can come across as incongruous, because most of the time they don’t.

It could also be that expressing how they feel is fraught with fear over how you will respond or how you will perceive them, all based on past experiences that may have nothing to do with you.

Early Attachments

We all experience a certain way of connecting and bonding with our primary caregivers in infancy and childhood. These experiences form part of the basis for how our brain organises itself and contribute to an initial attachment pattern – whether secure or insecure or any nuance in between.

Within this attachment pattern also lies how we express and interpret our emotions.

In the last chapter I spoke about implicit memory – experiences outside our ability to consciously recall them. All these experiences carry with them emotions, and these emotions are pivotal. If they were met in ways that helped you make sense of your experience, you integrate a feeling state that helps you move through similar experiences in adulthood in supportive ways. If they were rejected or misinterpreted, it might create a discord in your feeling world that can continue to confuse you.

To aid us in exploring these implicit memory processes, we can pay attention to the physical signals our body sends, especially when something is not quite ‘right’ (something I invited you to pay attention to in the last chapter as a preparation for this one).

But why is our physical self so important in this process?

Well, it all goes all the way back to our infancy.

The Importance of Our Infancy in Adulthood

Babies do not have reflective awareness of, or ability to verbalise, their needs like adults do. This is why it becomes so important to pay attention to how they physically communicate, with tears, with smiles, with movement. When we attune to a baby in this way, by caring for them as a unique human being with unique needs and continue to care, and repair if that’s needed, in this way through childhood and adolescence, it increases the likelihood that they develop a growing capacity to recognise and helpfully attend to their own emotions and feelings over time.

Tuning Into Ourselves

In many ways what we are aiming to do in this chapter is to tune into ourselves the same way we would a baby, by paying attention to the physical signals our body sends. This is because our very beginnings, as in our experiences as an infant and young child, lay an important foundation for the symbiosis between our physical and feeling self.

We don’t just consciously feel – we embody our feelings.

Learning to listen to your body can aid in discovering not only discrepancies in emotions or feelings states but also reveal layers of protection that are potentially no longer helpful to you.

Case Study: Tom and Maria

Things have been going quite well for Tom and Maria in the last few weeks. Maria, with Tom’s patience, has been able to be more open and they have enjoyed a newfound emotional intimacy that has also positively impacted their physical intimacy.

Tom has seemed relaxed and content with this dynamic, and radiated warmth in our sessions. Today, however, he appears distant. He is upset about something at work, and he spends a good part of the session talking about it – mostly in circles. I observe how Maria becomes quieter the more he speaks, only occasionally offering acknowledging nods. I also notice how her body is turned away from him. Not by much, but whereas in the last few sessions they have stayed mirrored, she is slightly hunched and keeping her body twisted away.

In a brief pause during which Tom grabs a tissue from the table, I notice how Maria lets out a little sigh. Tom’s eyes briefly dart towards her, but instead of acknowledging it, he continues speaking. I decide to gently interject.

I’m wondering what’s happening for you when you listen to Tom, Maria?

Tom looks a little put out that I’m asking Maria a question and not him and he leans back sharply in the sofa.

Maria says that while she’s of course sad that Tom is going through something difficult at work, he’s also not doing anything about it, he just keeps talking about it at home, with her. It feels like a broken record, and she doesn’t know how to help him.

There’s a certain coolness in her voice, and I notice how Tom slumps in the sofa, head bowed and hands fiddling with the tissue in his lap. There’s something slightly ‘off’ about his energy, like it doesn’t match what he is talking about so I ask Tom if we can try something.

He nods, but looks a little unsure, so I don’t ask him to close his eyes. I tell him to take a few calm breaths, relax his shoulders and sit quietly for a moment. Then I invite him to bring himself back to the moment at work that upset him the most, and to describe what’s happening in his body.

Tom describes how his face feels warm, and he can feel a pressure between his eyes. I ask him to focus on this pressure and tell me what comes up for him. He says he feels angry, that what his colleague said is unfair. I ask him to describe the feeling again, and only the feeling.

I feel angry, he says. Then a long pause. Boiling angry.

I notice how he swallows hard, and his eyes look a little glossy.

It’s unfair, I say, that you experienced this. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. You have a right to be angry.

Tom scrunches his face up in a pained expression, squeezing his eyes together, then punches the side of the sofa with his fist. Maria looks startled, but she places a hand on his leg and turns toward him.

I had no idea you were this upset, she says.

He takes a sharp breath, holds it, then exhales slowly, forcibly controlled. I never know when I’m allowed to be upset, he says, clenching his jaw.

Something occurs to me here. I remember Tom’s story and how his father left when he was young, and his mother brought him up with no family around. I introduce it gently, offering my thoughts as a reflection rather than a ‘must be’ interpretation, and I am careful not to blame his mother. Gradually, Tom’s body language softens, and when he seems calm and receptive enough, I ask him if remembers expressing anger when he was a teenager. Whether he raged and stormed and slammed doors.

Tom shakes his head, but his face flushes again. It was just me and my mum, he says, it didn’t seem fair.

What happened if you did? I ask. There must have been occasional instances.

Yeah, sometimes, he says, and she’d cry, tell me I was scaring her. Which was probably true, but I didn’t mean to, and I never hurt her. Tom buries his face in his hands.

It must have been really hard, I say, to go through all those big, complicated feelings and having to hide them or bury them. Feeling ashamed of them.

I notice that Maria is still turned towards him, with her hand on his leg.

Why don’t you ask, I say, how Maria feels when you get angry.

Tom looks up, first at me, then at Maria. She nods.

Ask me, she says.

OK, how do you feel when I get angry, like now, punching the sofa.

It doesn’t happen a lot, Maria says, but when you get properly angry about something I feel relief. Like you’re showing me something real. You’re so good at being affectionate and close, but with anger you just turn into a simmering stew. It’s frustrating.

So, you’re not scared of me, he asks.

Well, not in the way you think. I’m more scared of all the anger you’re hiding than what you show me.

Tom is rocking gently back and forth on the sofa, absorbing what Maria is saying.

I can understand that he says. You must pick up on something big, but when I’m not expressing it properly, you’re left guessing.

And wondering if one day you’ll explode, Maria says.

Here, Tom grabs her hand and looks her in the eyes. I promise I’ll be angrier, he says, so that I don’t explode. They both smile.

Tom vows to practise noticing when anger rises, then write down exactly how he feels, no holds barred. After that he can share it with Maria. This is a safe way to get to know, understand and gradually learn to express his anger appropriately. Telling him to release it on anyone, and especially Maria, immediately would be too much at this stage.

Exercises

COUPLES AND INDIVIDUALS

Start with the Secure Base

Hopefully you have been able to do as I suggested in the previous chapter – notice your physical self in the world – and you have these notes with you now. If you haven’t written anything down, bring forth any thoughts you may have had.

Exercise 1

In this first exercise, I’d like you to state any physical patterns you may have noticed.

Start with the words I notice.

You can do this as a couple taking turns, or you can do it on your own, writing down your observations.

If you are doing this as a couple, take turns and simply paraphrase or listen. If you have noticed something on your partners behalf, bring this to their attention, but do so without judgement, inference or interpretation. Don’t be afraid of silences, they can help new information to emerge.

For example:

‘I notice that my stomach plays up when I‘m upset with someone’

Or

‘I notice that I tremble when I want to express a disagreement’.

It may be that as you reflect you notice new information you had not noted down. Sometimes new discoveries can come when you simply are given the space to reflect.

Exercise 2

First, pick one of the I notice statements in the first exercise

I will now run through a series of questions. Try not to think too much, just stay focused on the physical sensation, follow your instincts and answer as succinctly as you can.

You don’t have to make sense of everything now. This is the beginning of a process, and you are simply practicing using your body as a reflective tool to open a wider and deeper world of discovery.

Example of process:

I notice

I notice that my face flushes when someone questions something I say

Immediate feeling

My immediate feeling is anger

Underlying emotion

I notice a sense of fear

What the emotion might be telling me

I think my underlying emotion is telling me I fear being accused

Childhood connection

I was often accused of lying as a child

How this plays out today

I often feel defensive if I feel someone doesn’t believe me. Then I struggle to speak

Original need

I think my need was to be trusted and believed

New step

I can offer myself compassion for the defensiveness, and take a moment to ask myself if I am really being disbelieved, or if someone is just curious

Partner/friend support

My partner can tell me when he is just being curious, and offer me patience to settle my feelings before speaking

Questions

I notice…

What is the immediate feeling in your I notice statement?

What, if any, underlying emotion emerges if you stay with the physical sensation?

What do you think your underlying emotion is telling you?

Is there anything familiar in this from your childhood?

How you think this plays out in your relationship/s today?

What do you think your original need was?

What new step can you do to begin to meet this real need today?

If you are doing this with someone: How can your partner help you?

You can now do the Debrief

Preparing For Next Chapter

Before the next chapter where we will explore grief and loss, I would like you to create a timeline of loss.

Losses follow us throughout our lives, and not always in the most obvious ways. When we talk about loss what often comes to mind is death and bereavement, end of relationships, loss of jobs. But loss and grief are so much more than that. It is not just our own losses that can affect us, when someone close to us experience a loss that can affect us too.

Make a line on a piece of paper and note down the losses you have experienced in your life, and what age you were when they occurred. These losses can be anything from relocation, loss of sexual safety through abuse, the death of a loved one, loss of friendships, loss of romantic relationships, loss of jobs or career opportunities, loss of identity (when you become a parent or move to a new country etc), parent’s divorce – and many more.

Take your time thinking through your life and pause at any event where you notice something, either physically or emotionally or both and note it down on your timeline.

This process may bring up difficult and painful feelings, and you don’t have to write your timeline in one go. Gauge how you respond, and if you feel overwhelmed or sad, take a moment to ground, then write down in your journal any physical sensations, thoughts and feelings, keeping the language simple and self-supportive.

Ending Note

In section 51 of Walt Whitman’s epic poem ‘Song of Myself’ he writes:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Much like his poem, and the poem at the beginning of this chapter, so do you.

This richness, this contradiction, this ever changing ocean of feelings and experiences is an integral part of life. As much as we perhaps long for an existence where our days are only spent dozing on warm slopes of rock by a calm sea, it is the nature of us to contain multitudes. To be still and to storm.

The best we can do, is simply to learn how to navigate our own seas.

Thank you for reading, and staying. If you have any questions or reflections to share, please don’t hesitate to message, or to leave a comment.