Changing the way you feel.

Sometimes people say "I want to get rid of this feeling" (be it anxiety, depression, anger,  etc), as if it's a thing, separate from you, that can put down and walked away from.  Actually this feeling is an aspect of your mind, a part of you. Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be healthy to chop off a part of your self and 'get rid' of it.

Sometimes it's helpful to visualise your difficult feelings as if they are different people, and imagine how you would talk to, or be with, someone else who was feeling that way.  Would you be dismissive, walk away, shut them away in another room?
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​Sounds harsh doesn't it? But this is often how we treat our selves, our own feelings.  And imagine if you did shut that person in another room so you couldn't hear or see them, what do you think they would do? Would they be silent and sulk for a while? Or would they angrily bang on the door and break up the furniture before collapsing in an exhausted heap?

The person in the room doesn't disappear, just as the feeling in your mind doesn't go away.  And if that person has been locked in that room for a very long time, it might feel very scary to open that door and have a look.

In counselling, we open doors together.  Sometimes the room is stuffed full of different feelings, so we might take out just one at a time.  Sometimes the feeling is sitting in a dark corner at the back of the room, has given up hope, needs time to adjust.  Once we open the door, we listen to what the feeling has to say, what it has been trying to tell us.  Sometimes it's a very old feeling, that really ought to have moved on by now, but because it was never heard it's been sitting in that room ever since.

When you open that door and you start communicating with that feeling, you bring a part of your self, that  has been isolated, into connection with the whole of yourself. This is healing (making whole) and the emotional tension is released. The feeling is free to come and go, and no longer overwhelms you.

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