How do I reflect on difficult feelings and memories?
Feel your body. Name the feeling or sensation with one word, without judging it, and if you do judge it, notice how you judged it.
For example, as you go through your day, occasionally notice what feeling and sensation you are having and name it with one word, such as: angry, frustrated, satisfied, calm, tired, rested, jealous, anxious, confident, etc.
This creates awareness of what is happening. If you don’t know what you are feeling, you have nothing to reflect on. When you feel a feeling, approach it as you would with nature. You pick a leaf up and notice the colors, shape, and texture, just as it is, there are no bad leaves. Just feel the calm, just feel the anxiety, just feel the sadness etc. Many times this is enough, but sometimes the feelings need the story that goes with it. Many times crying allows the sadness to move, without knowing anything else.
What activated the feeling? What are the words that were said or behavior that you saw that activated the feeling?
For example, someone said something, or something happened that you started to have a particular feeling or sensation. Such as, “When you said you are going home, I felt sad or I felt angry or I felt relieved and I felt a tear, tightness in my stomach, or my heart opened.” No judgement, just name the raw experience that was activated.
Feelings and sensations can be activated from the past and they may have nothing to do with the present situation. Therefore, what was said or what behavior you saw, may bring up anger but eighty percent of the anger may have come from the past. It was just the trigger. I can now determine what part of this situation is mine, yours, and ours or all of the above.
Where is this feeling or sensation coming from?
Have I felt this before? Where? When? With whom? Why now?
For example, “When my partner is angry, I get afraid, because my parents were scarry when they were angry and I was too little to do anything about it.” “So when my partner is angry now, I feel the same fear and helplessness.”
This is the beginning of deep reflection. The easiest attitude is curiosity. When we can locate the feeling to a time in the past, then the person in the present can be separated out from that issue. Then it is possible to see what is mine, then I can deal with the past as a separate issue and not project it onto my partner.
Sorting out these feelings, memories, and dreams is complicated. The more you can do on your own, the more you can get out of your therapy. The individual, marriage, or family therapist will be able to help you more easily. This area is delicate so get some good help to put it in context.
Marriage Tips, Easier Said than Done, Part 3, A Friend on the Path
