How Do You Actually Feel a Feeling? (I Had No Idea Either)

“Feel your feelings” is vague advice. Here’s exactly how I do it in 3 simple steps.

When I’m dealing with a difficult emotion, I want it gone.
Fast.

My first instinct is to reason my way out of it, or distract myself until it fades away.

But unfortunately, this doesn’t make the feeling go away.
It makes it stay longer, return louder or morph into a general state of unidentified discomfort.

Still, I struggle to do the thing all experts seem to suggest:

“Feel your feelings.”
“Make space for your emotions.”
“Allow the emotion to go through its cycle.”

I had no idea what that meant.

My left brain wanted a technical sheet.
An operating manual.
A breakdown of what I needed to think and do, in exact order and with specific details.

So I began gathering bits of insight from wherever I could: books, podcasts, coaching, research, and a lot of trial and error with my own nervous system.

I still struggle with this. But I’ve made progress and here are a few simple things you might find helpful too:

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Why it’s hard to feel

It’s helpful to remember that, from an evolutionary perspective, feelings evolved as data points to help us assess how safe our environment is.

Even today, they carry important information that helps us navigate our reality.

So we should treat them with curiosity, and welcome the chance to explore what they’re trying to tell us.

According to Dr. Tracey Marks, how we relate to emotions is shaped by our temperament, which is the combination of our nature (genetics) and our nurture (upbringing).

Some of us were taught from a young age that certain emotions, like anger, weren’t acceptable. Over time, we got the message:
Some emotions should be avoided at all costs.

So we did. We became masters at avoiding, escaping and numbing.

We started to eat, scroll, drink, or shop our way out of discomfort.

Some of these strategies helped me cope for a while, but they always left me feeling worse.

I want to do better now.

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Here’s what I try instead (and it helps)

I try to follow these three steps:

1. Acknowledge the emotion. Without judgment.

That means naming what’s there.

“I feel disappointed.”

Another part of you might respond:

“How can you feel this way when so many people have it worse?”

That thought is not helpful. It doesn’t make the pain go away. It adds shame to it.

Psychologists call this a meta-feeling: when we start having feelings about our feelings.

I remember planning my small wedding during COVID and feeling completely destabilized by the uncertainty.

I didn’t know if the borders would be open, if my parents would be able to come (they weren’t), or if the restaurant we’d booked would have to close.

The idea of just the two of us signing a paper at city hall felt depressing.

I told myself I had no right to be upset while others were losing family members and even their lives.

That logic didn’t calm me. It just made me feel guilty and more upset.

These days, I still catch myself doing that sometimes: dismissing my pain because someone else’s seems worse. But I’m learning to pause and say,

“Mine is valid, too.”

Not more than anyone else’s pain. But no less either.

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2. Go into the body

Research shows that emotions tend to last about 90 seconds as physiological events.

In other words, emotions happen in the body. And the brain alone isn’t enough to process them.

We can intellectualize them all we want, but eventually, we’ll have to tap into our body to fully experience them.

What I mean by that is sitting quietly and asking:

Where do I feel this emotion?

Is it a tight chest? A clenched jaw? A knot in my stomach? Discomfort in my throat?

I try to become an observer. I sit with it like I’d sit through a thunderstorm.
We notice the lightning bolts, the various shades of grey in the sky, the raindrops

We don’t try to stop it or fix it.
We just sit with it.

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3. Stay for a moment longer than I want to

The final step is the hardest for me.
Staying present and taking deep long breaths.

I tend to want to escape this.
My mind suggests snacks, emails, to-do lists, anything to shift focus.
But if I can resist, even for a few breaths, I end up feeling much better.

I follow one of Tamara Levitt’s 10-minute breathing guides on the Calm app.

Sometimes I put my hand on the place where I feel it and imagine I’m breathing into that spot.

I usually resist this the same way I resist going for a run.

But once I start, I always feel better, no matter how well I think I ‘performed’ at it.

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Final thoughts

Feeling your feelings is uncomfortable.

It’s hard work sometimes and it can feel excruciatingly slow.

Why bother when a pint of ice cream can do the trick just fine?

Because it really doesn’t. It’s a short term fix that ends up making us feel worse.

And I wish I could just dismiss this whole ‘feel your feelings’ approach as useless.
But I have to admit that it works.

I can’t say I’ve mastered this. I still avoid it. I still resist it.

But the more I practice, the less afraid I am of difficult emotions.

If you’re learning this too, I hope this gives you a place to start.

We’re figuring it out together ✨