I find this hard to explain, to be honest. Mostly because I don’t want to assume we all feel things in the same way. And also because the phrase ‘feel it all’ can sound like… a lot. Like an invitation to overwhelm. If I were reading it, I might already feel my nervous system bracing.
So let me clarify.
When I say ‘all’, I don’t mean every emotion all at once (that would be… colourful). I mean everything that accompanies a feeling — before, during, and after. The full chain reaction.
Here’s an honest share (insert awkward emoji).
Some mornings I would wake up already anticipating – sometimes dreading – how my physical body was going to scare the absolute bejeebers out of me that day. A really positive way to start life, right? Not exactly optional though. Living with chronic pain and disabilities meant things could happen in my body out of the blue, or for a very clear reason. Either way, symptoms showed up.
So I learned to get ahead of it.
Not in a negative way – more a realistic one. Pain was likely to appear. If it didn’t, great. If it did, I wanted to be prepared. But what that meant in practice was waking up with fear already switched on. Anticipation layered on anticipation.
It’s coming.
This is going to be bad.
I won’t be able to cope.
Then came the physical sensations – pain, discomfort, loss of control – which ramped the fear up even further. And after that, the thoughts:
What do I do?
Is this going to get worse?
I’m alone.
And somewhere inside all of that was the raw emotion. The crying. The desperation. The pleading for a way out.
What more can I do?
Please make it stop.
How can I fix this?
Who can help me fix this?
So when I say feel it all, it’s because I did. It was one big bundle – fear, noise, reactions, sensations, thoughts – all tangled together. I wasn’t choosing this. It was automatic (bear with on that as a few years ago I’d have thought ‘erm yep you are’, but then I studied and dove a level deeper than my mate ye old critical voicey-o!)
And the truth was: the only way through it was through it.
For me, feeling it all meant allowing myself to feel into the epicentre of what was happening – not just the pain, but the fear of the pain, the story about the pain, the meaning I was attaching to the pain – and then out the other side. (Insert yay emoji, though it rarely felt yay at the time.)
I felt the fear.
I heard the automatic thoughts.
And then – gently, imperfectly – I felt around for thoughts that could help me ride it out. Thoughts that soothed my anguish instead of ridiculing me. Thoughts that didn’t shame me or pile on more suffering.
Sometimes I had to dig really deep.
Sometimes I sank straight into the suffering I knew so well.
Sometimes I got frustrated.
Here again.
For ffs, why can’t you learn?
So stupid.
Each time one of these “events” happened – that’s what I’ll call them — I went round and round, up and down. Because deep down, I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t have confidence in the kinder words I was trying to offer. I believed I had to stay on guard at all times. Fear everything. Trust no one – not even myself.
Until something shifted.
I realised my thoughts weren’t trying to destroy me. They were trying to protect me from a perceived threat (thanks for bearing with!). And with a highly sensitive nervous system, they were doing their job – just a bit too enthusiastically.
What I truly wanted wasn’t to stop feeling. It was to feel it all so I could find a way through to something truer. Or at least one step closer to truth. Or, at the very least, to be open to the possibility that I might actually be safe.
And that I could begin – tentatively – to trust a new thought.
They felt unfamiliar. A bit flimsy. But I decided to give them a chance.
With these small tweaks, and by spending time staying with the experience rather than fighting it, my system began to calm. A new internal dialogue was quietly saved for next time (if there was a next time).
This was huge for me.
Yes, these events happened again and again. But over time, I created enough space to catch the spiral earlier – and suffer less. Eventually, the suffering stopped altogether. I could experience discomfort or pain without the additional battering of conditioned thoughts trying to wrestle me to the ground. They called for me or was it more ‘knock and run? But this time I had a ring doorbell (other doorbells are available – insert laughing emoji). I saved my energy and didn’t open the door.
There was space.
A glimmer of time.
A chance to witness what was happening and choose a gentler response – for myself and for my poor body, which was only ever doing its job.
We became a bit of a team.
I still want a perfect body at all times (obviously). But it’s a relief to relate to my body instead of running from it.
And on the subject of running from feelings…
Have I mentioned my journey with alcohol?
Oh Lordy.
Buckle up – it’ll be on its way soon!
Leave a Reply