How to Feel Your Feelings Without Getting Stuck in Them

If you’ve ever thought that having feelings makes you vulnerable or felt too overwhelmed by them, this article is for you.

We live in a cold, highly logical world that prioritizes rationality over emotions. As children, we are often taught to suppress or hide our feelings, showing a facade of strength and indifference. 

The outcome is clear: we grow up without emotional intelligence and with several repressed emotions.

If this sounds familiar, it is possible that nobody taught you a very rare but necessary skill—how to feel your feelings.

Today, we will explore Felt Sense, a method for emotional processing, especially powerful for sensitive and empathetic people. 

Why Learning How to Feel Your Feelings Matters

We navigate life through the power of emotions, making them a vital element of our inner world. We cannot take them out of the equation without producing an energetic and psychological imbalance. 

This is where emotional presence becomes key—the act of consciously experiencing emotions instead of suppressing them or being overwhelmed by them.

Suppression and overidentification are common patterns. On one extreme, we don’t let our feelings surface, causing energetic blockages and pent-up emotions. On the other extreme, we tend to overidentify with our emotions, creating energetic imbalances and energy losses.

If you want to achieve inner peace and emotional balance, learning how to feel your feelings truly matters.

What Is the Felt Sense Method?

“Felt sense” is a concept developed by the philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin. It embodies the experience of combining emotion with bodily awareness, creating a connection between the body and the mind.

This is how Gendlin describes the concept of “felt sense”:

“A felt sense is not a mental experience but a physical one. Physical. A bodily awareness of a situation or person, or event”

A felt sense happens to us when our bodies are relaxed and in conditions to experience emotions mindfully. It’s something that “comes” to us, instead of something we can force. However, we can prepare our bodies to experience a felt sense with relaxation techniques and by focusing on the present moment.

It also differs vastly from traditional emotional processing. We are used to putting labels on emotions, which means processing them through cognitive or verbal means. Emotions are understood intellectually, instead of actually felt. The concept of felt sense invites us to process emotions through bodily sensations. 

Engaging in felt senses has many benefits. First, it helps to process trauma, allowing one to renegotiate how trauma gets locked in the body so that it can be transformed. Additionally, it is especially powerful for sensitive or empathetic people who tend to suppress or over-identify with feelings.

A felt sense is an emotion that is allowed to exist without carrying us with it. No judgment, suppression, or overidentification. We observe them almost objectively, allowing the body to process them automatically. In this sense, it becomes a major tool to teach you how to feel your feelings.

How to Feel Your Feelings: A Step-by-Step Process

Step 1: Create a Safe Space for Feeling

Although having a quiet environment is not always feasible, you can create an inner safe space for feeling by sitting comfortably and closing your eyes. 

If you feel any tension and can’t sit comfortably, you can do some quick, gentle stretches to release the tension.

Then, shift your attention inward naturally, without forcing. You can do this by breathing deeply and focusing on your heart. Repeat until you are relaxed and external stimuli can’t distract you.

Step 2: Scan Your Body for Sensations

Now, heighten your self-awareness, focusing deeply on your inner world.

It’s time to scan your body, paying attention to any sensations that may arise. You can do this for each part, starting from top to bottom or vice versa.

For instance, you can focus on your feet. Ask yourself: “What do I feel there?” and notice if there is any discomfort or bodily sensation. Then, focus on your legs, abdomen, chest, and so on. 

Pay attention to the details: any tingling? Pain? A knot in your stomach? Take note of each small detail. 

The goal is to gently notice where discomfort or emotion arises, staying open and curious.

Step 3: Describe the Feeling Without Labeling It

Once you have identified all the bodily sensations you are experiencing at the moment, try to describe them. But don’t do it through cognitive or intellectual means—in other words, don’t label it. 

Labeling means identifying the emotions as either “good” or “bad,” or putting a name to them like “anger,” “sadness,” “joy,” or “jealousy.” In sum, avoid mental stories or quick judgments.

Instead, try to understand the nature of those emotions, in the same way a book author would describe a tree–objectively, focusing on what the senses can experience.

Describe exactly what your body can feel: lightness, a faster heartbeat, hands sweating, a knot in the stomach, tension around the chest area, etc.

Focus on texture: does that emotion feel sharp or heavy? Fluttery or sticky? If you can, try to put synesthetic descriptions to it, like “this emotion feels yellow and tastes sour,” or “it sounds high-pitched and smells like flowers.”

Step 4: Breathe Into the Sensation

The next step is to allow your body to process and experience these emotions. Let your breath support a gentle connection between your body, mind, and soul.

Understand the harmful tendencies of suppressing emotions or strengthening them with thoughts. For instance, when we feel sadness, we tend to hoard depressive feelings, which strengthen the initial sensation. 

Instead, allow your sensations to evolve naturally, and observe them through the lens of conscious awareness. This is where you learn how to feel your feelings naturally and with balance.

Step 5: Ask Your Body, “What Do You Need?”

Intuition plays a vital role in this process. Our bodies are always giving us signals of what they need, but we need to calm our minds and focus to be able to listen to them. 

Invite your body to speak by asking, “What do you need?” Then still your mind, and pay attention to what your body has to say. Listen for intuitive answers instead of logical ones.

Even if the answers are subtle, be patient and trust the process. Surrender and let go of the need for control.

Step 6: Allow Emotional Movement and Release

Whenever your body is ready, allow the release and movement of those emotions. 

Feelings are transitory, but we are the ones who suppress them or get stuck in them. When we observe them from a detached perspective, they will naturally occur and leave.

Once you are prepared to finish the practice, pay attention to any internal shifts: how did you feel at the beginning of the practice, and how do you feel now? If you want, you can keep a journal and take note of your experience with felt senses. Track your progress as you learn how to feel your feelings.

Tips for How to Feel Your Feelings Without Getting Stuck

If you've been wondering how to feel your feelings when you are sensitive, felt senses can be a powerful help.

Experiencing felt senses through this method allows your body to process and experience emotions vividly, without overidentification or letting your emotions take over yourself. 

In this sense, this method represents an approach to expressing one's feelings without getting stuck or suppressing them.

Here are some additional tips on how to feel your feelings to deepen the felt sense experience without feeling lost in the process 

Stay Embodied and Don't Jump Into Analysis

One of the major traits of a felt sense is that you place your center of gravity in your body and heart instead of your head. This means that analyzing the situation or putting labels to what you are feeling defeats the purpose of the felt sense. Instead of thinking, focus on what you are feeling.

Be Patient with Slow or Subtle Processes

Some emotions are subtler or more abstract than others, making them more difficult to understand. Others feel deeply ingrained and take more time to be released. Be patient and give them time to naturally occur.

Remember: Emotional Movement Happens In Its Own Timing

Allow each emotion to complete its natural cycle without forcing it. Each emotion is unique and takes its own time.

Final Thoughts on How to Feel Your Feelings

Feeling is healing. The journey of emotional processing and release requires you to honor your body’s intuitive emotional wisdom.

Today, we explored how to feel your feelings with the Felt Sense method. It may be hard initially, but with regular practice, you will learn to trust your body and hear its intuitive signals and cues. 

The benefits of detached observation of emotion are profound. By allowing your body to experience without overidentification, you embark on a journey of self-knowledge, emotional balance, and energetic release. 

Your body is the temple of divine wisdom. When you learn to surrender to intuitive messages, healing becomes a subsequent part of the journey. 

If you’re ready to move beyond merely surviving and embrace a life of alignment and peace, I invite you to book a complimentary spiritual consultation, where I’ll personally tune into your energy and guide you