OMG! Feeling all the Feelings! How to Tune in to Your Truth

Feeling feelings has been something I have struggled with my whole life. Even now, as I coach other women on this very thing, it can still come up for me. But as my mentor Gabrielle Bernstein always says, "you teach what you most need to learn." So here we go! 

Growing up as a sensitive child is hard. It feels like you are experiencing everything on overdrive, or as I like to say- it's as if the volume on life turned up extra loud. And we notice things that other people don't. Because we are super perceptive and we have the ability to read other's emotions and feel deeply what other's are feeling. And what happens is that we begin to notice subtle discrepancies between what people are saying, and what is actually going on. We pick up on little things, and we know when people are lying. But we quickly start to get feedback that this gift and ability we have is actually dangerous. People don't like it when you call them on their shit, when you know that they are lying. Especially when you're a child! So you get this feedback verbally or you just start to sense that people don't like this about you. And on top of that, you so often hear "why are you overreacting?" and "OMG it's not that big of a deal....". So you keep getting this feedback that not only is your ability to sense things alienating you, but that your feelings are invalid. That you somehow are not feeling things "correctly". And as a child, we take this feedback and we decide something must be terribly wrong with us. 

We start to think that to be liked and loved we have to disconnect from this ability that we have to sense things. We start to tune out our own feelings; disconnect and listen more to other's wants and needs than our own. As we grow up we become more and more distanced from the voice of our inner self. And the problem is that feelings are there for a reason! They are our guideposts, our internal GPS system, pointing you in the direction of your soul's desires! They are telling you when something is wrong and needs to be fixed. When you're too busy and you need to rest. When you tune them out and tune into what other people need and desire, you are living an inauthentic life, where you are constantly trying to make up for what you believe is a deep flaw within you. 

But the reality is that you are not flawed. You are a beautiful gifted soul and your feelings are calling out to you to be heard! So what can you do about this? Think of it this way- feelings and energy are like a radio station; sending out signals and a frequency. You have spent so much time tuning into other people's stations and turning the volume down on your own to very, very low. Tuning yourself out becomes so habitual that you don't even think to turn up the volume on your own station anymore. You feel almost as if you don't know how. And your station feels uncomfortable and scary because you've been pushing your feelings down for so many years that it feels like there is this big landfill behind you. And that if you even dare to switch the dial to your station, that this landfill will wash over you and you will just be drowned by the volume. What will happen, however, if you do not tune into these feelings is they will continue to stay piled up and weigh you down, and they will get bigger and more scary as time goes on. You have to slowly, over time, learn how to tune back into your own station, the frequency of your truth, your feelings, and your inner voice. 

How to begin? Start here: 

First you have to make quiet alone time a priority. You won't be able to hear your inner guide that has become so quiet over time unless you sit down and really, really listen. So whether this is just sitting alone in silence, mediation, journaling, spending time in nature... whatever vessel resonates with you- you must make time in your busy schedule to just breath and start to turn the dial back inward. In the beginning this may be tough. Your mind may wander. You may not know how to sort through all the feelings. You may think "is this even my feeling? Where is this coming from?" But this is a struggle for all highly sensitive souls and empaths- to figure out "is this mine or not?". So start there- just ask yourself that question! Where is this feeling coming from? Start to dissect the feeling, take it apart, look back at your day. What happened that could have caused it? When did you start feeling it? What was going on around you? Journaling is a really effective method for going through this process. Once you start to free write clues pop up. The more you let the pen flow across the page the more things will become clear to you. 

The most important thing is to start building a relationship with your inner guide and to start to gently observe your feelings as they come up. It can help to set an alarm for several times a day to do a check-in with yourself. Take your emotional pulse. What am I feeling right now? You can start with the physical- I feel butterflies in my stomach, my shoulders are tense, etc. Then you start to go deeper. What is the emotion underneath that physical sensation? Where is that feeling coming from in you heart. The more you do this and start to tap in to your emotions the more you are going to build that muscle and turn up the volume on your station. But it will take practice and time. Think of all the years you spent tuning yourself out! Know that this will not change overnight but that with time and practice you can create great shifts. 

 
Lately I've been really tuned out of my own station; "Amber Rochelle 11.11". And what I find is that in times like this the less I listen to myself the more chaotic my life becomes. Because when I'm not attuned to my own needs and feelings, I am living without a compass. I've been thrown off balance and am not coming from a heart-centered place. Over the years I have found that my feelings are my friends. That my station is my guide. And sometimes we just need a gentle reminder of what we are putting our attention on, and to switch that dial. Be gentle with yourself, take it one step at a time. Know that I am on this journey with you!

XOXO

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