When we are safe and our needs are met, we feel content.
When you were a child, your feelings of love and trust were betrayed. Your pain, rage, and fear were too great for you to experience them fully and continue to function.
Feelings are just that, things that you feel in your body: tightening in your throat, trembling, clutching in your stomach, shortness of breath, moistness behind your eyes, moistness (or hardness) between your legs, warmth in your chest, tingling in your hands, fullness in your heart.
If no one paid attention to what you felt and you never learned to name your feelings you will be starting at the beginning.
Hopelessness and depression are rage turned inward.
As a child you couldn't afford to say "I hate my father; I want to kill him," so you hated yourself instead, finding a hundred reasons why you were bad.
All the creative arts can help you connect with your feelings.
Sing the blues!
This isn't about performance it's about expressing yourself.
Draw a picture of the way you want to feel.
You can tell yourself the comforting things others have told you: "It's okay to cry."
By calling on the part of yourself that is able to nurture you, you provide a wise and kind mother/father for the frightened, hurt, or angry child within.
If you have something to say that's important or vulnerable, don't undermine yourself by picking a time that is not conducive to real listening. Give yourself and your friend the benefit of a fair start.
If you want to be intimate with someone, you have to express your feelings. But not all relationships are intimate...getting angry at a police officer who pulls you over for a ticket isn't strategically sound.
Because memories and feelings are stored in the body, working through feelings physically can be a powerful adjunct to talking.
Alcohol and many drugs suppress feelings.
Breathe, just breathe...
You need to call on your judgment (what you know to be true when you're not scared) to guide you.
Happiness, excitement, satisfaction, love, security and hope will appear more frequently.
Sometimes peacefulness and contentment are the most disconcerting feelings of all.
"The point of all this work on myself is to feel good."
Take the risk of admitting that you feel good first for a moment, then for longer.
You deserve to feel good.
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