The Sea of Emotions in the Body: How to Safely Anchor Yourself while Exploring It

Your body is a map of your life. It stores your memories, your joys, your sorrows, your traumas. And it also holds the key to your healing.

Have you ever wondered why you continue to be overwhelmed with painful emotions despite your best efforts at managing them through logic and reason? As much as you prepare mentally to face these emotional triggers by adopting alternate perspectives or evaluating the situation factually, do you find the emotion bubble up to the surface anyway because of how you feel in your body? This is a very common experience. 

There’s a reason why the words ‘emotions’ and ‘feelings’ have come to be used interchangeably. For each emotion we experience, there are distinct body sensations that accompany it- be it racing heartbeats with anxiety, a sinking feeling in the stomach and fear or disappointment, a lump in the throat when heartbroken or hurt. Research has found that these body sensations alone can induce emotions, even before the thinking part of our brain can get activated, especially when these emotions date back to an extremely distressing and potentially traumatizing event, which may have left an imprint on our nervous system. 

Therefore, we can’t just think our way out of painful emotions; because after a point, under-feeling paves the way for overthinking, which keeps us stuck in a frustrating and tiring loop, while the emotions we’re avoiding keep intensifying. You also need to feel them really, witness their presence in your body and hold space for them, until they’re ready to pass on (as they always do, since emotions are like a wave that always subsides when you ride it out). Only then is it possible for our mind to make meaning of the experience as a whole and for us to engage in behaviours that align with our emotional needs and mental goals. This is not easy, because feeling our emotions involves holding space for pain and heaviness. Learning how to create a safe and soothing space to feel your emotions in your body is important, to help you feel more in control, and to prevent overstimulation and possible retraumatization. 

How to attune to emotions as experienced in your body:

• Do a body scan- Starting from the toes up to the head, slowly move your attention through the parts of your body. Look out for any sensations of tightness or heaviness you may feel in any of these parts. 

• Describe and label- Once you’ve noted the parts of your body where you’ve observed some tension, describe the qualities of these sensations in as much detail as possible. Note their size, shape, colour, weight, intensity of the pressure, texture, temperature, movement/stillness. This reduces the vagueness of the emotional experience and allows you to track changes in the intensity of the emotions as you continue to hold space for them. 

How to create safety before/after body-based emotional exploration:

• Belly breaths- With one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest, take in deep breaths through your nose, and exhale through your mouth. Notice how the hand on your stomach moves as your stomach rhythmically contracts and expands, while keeping the hand on your chest as stable as possible. 

• The Voo Breath- This involves breathing just like in the above exercise, with the only change being that you make a ‘voo’ sound each time you exhale through your mouth, and draw your attention to the vibrations it brings about in your chest.

• Progressive Muscle Relaxation- This practice involves drawing attention to the muscle groups in your body one by one, starting from the toes; and alternating between tightening and releasing these muscles for a 6-7 seconds each. 

• Self hug - Placing your right hand below your left arm and your left hand on your right shoulder, apply a soothing amount of pressure as you hug yourself and rock from side to side.

• Safe anchors- Recall a memory of when you’ve felt safe, happy, nourished and loved. Alternatively, recall how it was like to be in a peaceful place in nature/indoors. Recall as many details of the internal and external physical experience associated with these memories and invite the sensations to wash over your consciousness once again- be it the warm fuzzy feeling in your chest, or the dampness of the grass under your feet. 

• Shake it off- After you’ve spent some time processing your emotions and you wish to release them for the time being, do a quick body scan and note the areas of tension. Then breathe into these areas and imagine moving the tension to peripheral parts of your body- like your hands, feet, shoulders and hips; and shake it off, imagining shaking off sand or dust from your body.  

While these practices can support you in your journey while exploring the mind-body connection, it’s recommended to work on heavy overwhelming emotions in a safe space with a trained mental health professional who can help you learn emotional regulation skills to stabilize yourself before you delve into the complexities of deep-rooted emotions. 

References:

Kuhfuß, M., Maldei, T., Hetmanek, A., & Baumann, N. (2021). Somatic experiencing - effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: a scoping literature review. European journal of psychotraumatology, 12(1), 1929023. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2021.1929023 

Levine, P. A. (2010). Healing Trauma: A pioneering program for restoring the wisdom of your body. Sounds True.  

Ogden, Pat, and Kekuni Minton. (2008). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). New York: Norton. 

Porges S. W. (2022). Polyvagal Theory: A Science of Safety. Frontiers in integrative neuroscience, 16, 871227. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2022.871227 

Taylor, S. E., Klein, L. C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A., & Updegraff, J. A. (2000). Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological review, 107(3), 411–429. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.107.3.411 

Van der Koek, Bessel A. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Penguin Books.

Zaccaro, A., Piarulli, A., Laurino, M., Garbella, E., Menicucci, D., Neri, B., & Gemignani, A. (2018). How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 12, 353. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353 

Disclaimer: This blog post is meant for awareness/entertainment purposes only. It is not medical advice and one must refrain from self-diagnosing. It is in no way a substitute for therapy with a mental health professional and it is not meant to be clinical. To consult with a psychotherapist on our team, you can contact us on fettle.counselling@gmail.com.