“Little breath, breathe me gently, row me gently, for I am a river I am learning to cross.”

So said poet William Stanley Merwin in words which convey that being in touch with yourself can sometimes feel overwhelming. Psychiatrist Victoria Lemle says that the key skill we rarely learn is how to feel our feelings. We are wired to avoid our emotions, not mindfully embrace them.

“This subtle and challenging skill does not come naturally, but it can be learned. Without it, we are truly at the whim of our emotional weather, unable to deeply know ourselves, and lacking a grounded compass for choosing our actions wisely,” she says.

Victoria explains that positive emotions, such as joy, excitement, attraction, amusement or pride, come up in situations when we see that important physical, psychological or social needs are within reach and they motivate approach behaviours. Negative emotions, such as anxiety, fear, hurt, anger, guilt, sadness or jealousy, come up in situations when our brain sees a threat and they motivate avoidance behaviours.  

So, basically we’re talking approach versus avoidance. Victoria says it’s important to notice something here: “Feelings are not designed to have us slow down and really feel them. We may not even be consciously aware of our emotional state. Our brain just needs to register a feeling just long enough to orient us to what’s important in the environment and to activate various physical and behavioural systems to fuel a move toward or away.”

According to Victoria, nature wants us to act not feel. Nurture also wants us to shut down certain feelings. Why not just give in to these instincts then? Well, because our initial emotional response is often a complex jumble of primary feelings, plus secondary emotions (often related to distorted interpretations), mixed together with all of our avoidance behaviours.

Emotions pull for quick, reflexive action to meet immediate goals and avoid or satisfy the feeling in the moment, says Victoria. They are not designed to move you toward your longer-term goals, values, or well-being.

According to Harvard brain scientist, dr Jill Bolte Taylor, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body when a person has a reaction to something in their environment. This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening and then you can watch it go away. “After that, if you continue to feel fear, anger, and so on, you need to look at the thoughts that you’re thinking that are re-stimulating the circuitry.”

Victoria explains the four steps for dealing with emotions as follows:

Step 1 – Name the feeling:Pause when you become aware of a feeling. You may first notice the general tone of the emotion (either negative or positive). For example, you are feeling vaguely uncomfortable. See if you can name the specific emotion present without judgment.

Step 2 – Allow the feeling sensations in your body: Emotions are called “feelings” because we feel them in the body. See if you can detect the physical sensations without judgment. For example, do you have a lump in your throat? A knot in the stomach?

Step 3 – What’s at the heart of your feelings? Gently shift your attention to investigate what is driving the emotion. See if you can feel the pain without blame. The aim is to drop into deeper and more vulnerable waters, where the core of your pain and values live. What are these feelings trying to tell you?

Step 4 – Bring compassion to your experience: As you allow and inspect your feelings, it is important to bring kindness to your experience (especially if it is painful). We all know how to speak critically to ourselves. This step is about cultivating the opposite: bringing a compassionate, caring attitude to what you are feeling.

Our deepest and wildest emotions of anxiety, fear, resentment, anger, sadness and grief are not our enemies, dr Jill Bolte Taylor says. They are important information from which we can learn and grow. Learning happens when we develop the ability to be with difficult feelings.

So, count to 90. Then say once again with William Stanley Merwin, “little breath come from in front of me, go away behind me, row me quietly now, as far as you can”. Girlfriend, let’s breathe through this so that we can traverse the river of emotion without fear of drowning. – Angie Kleijn.