Building embodied capacity for your feelings

The journey of embodiment includes the journey of learning to feel. To understand your body, its wisdom and intelligence, to be in tune with your body sensations and the signal the body sends, takes time and can feel like learning a new language. It takes dedication, willingness and openness.

Now, on this journey you may face a fear of actually feeling. A fear of what may arise once you start to open yourself to your sensations and inner world. In other words: you are not sure whether you have the capacity to meet and be with all that may emerge.

That is understandable, especially if you have been disconnected to your feelings and body for the majority of your life. Maybe you even remember that it did not feel safe as a child to truly feel and express as your caregivers were not available, dismissive of your emotions or too busy with their own story.

Learn to identify your capacity

The beauty of learning to be with your feelings the embodied way is that the more you get familiar with your somatic landscape (“soma” being the ancient Greek word for body) in its felt experience, the more you have the mean and end at our fingertips at the same time.

Let me explain: To increase your felt experience, to build the trust in your body wisdom and inner intelligence, a more intimate connection with your feelings is simply required. The body speaks in sensations and feelings, not in words.

At the same time, as you learn to be more sensitive to the felt experience, you will also learn when things are getting too much. You will feel your capacity and limit as well as begin to respect it. This brings more agency to act in the moment and to regulate when necessary.

Knowing and honoring your individual limit of what you can endure at any moment in life is paramount! Respecting your capacity means to know when you have had enough and overwhelm yourself.

This is why it is important: if we do not respect our limit, we are likely to put ourselves into situations of overwhelm, stress and ultimately re-traumatization. This is counter-productive as it works against the trust we aim to build and can ultimately augment the fear of feeling that we want to let go of.

So: in order to build the confidence in your ability to handle feelings, begin by learning to notice when your capacity is reached. In embodied words: become aware when the body says “too much” and the nervous system cannot take it any further. In extreme situations we tend to go into a “tunnel”, disassociate from the environment or shut down.

This may be a bit of a trial-and-error experience for a while. Keep in mind though that you will experience enormous empowerment once you know and honor your capacity and limits!

Build your capacity from here

Once you know your capacity, you can work on increasing it – incrementally, step by step over time. Here is the good news: your capacity will naturally grow the second you begin to respect when it has been reached. Because acknowledging your limits is an act of self-care.

In other words: Knowing and honoring your capacity will build the confidence and trust in yourself of handling more – cause you know that you can rely on yourself to stop when it gets too much.

And if you struggle to identify and get clear on your capacity: find a skilled coach or practitioner who can lovingly and patiently hold space for yourself while you explore the limits for yourself.

Embodiment Coaching on The Embodied Path includes this practice at its very center.

How to build capacity over time

Where you are on your journey, how big or small your capacity is and how it will increase is highly dependent on your individual situation and (trauma) history. So there is not really a one size fits all.

However, there are certain elements that apply to everyone who wants to build their embodied capacity:

1. Know your resources.

Know what resources in your life you can apply when things simply get too much. A resources can be calling a friend, wrapping yourself in a blanket, breathing, going for a walk, orienting to your environment etc. Anything that helps you to resource when things are too overwhelming to handle.

And be aware when resources turn into compensating strategies. For example, when the chocolate is more an opportunity to avoid the feeling to begin with than supporting us when things get too much.

2. Open yourself to your body sensations.

Get practices or support from a coach / practitioner that help you to connect more with your body sensations. A few examples are: mindful body scan, feeling your body sensations in relation to different objects, touch to observe your sensations and so on.

This may be small to begin with. Maybe you are just aware of overall tension. Over time you will get more precise and concrete. And see if you can just feel – and notice the magic that can happen if we let any analysis, interpretation or even judgment aside. And be patient and kind with yourself!

3. Understand your body’s limits

Get in tune with your body’s and nervous system capacities. If you have not felt much in your life, chances are high our capacity is rather low. And that is ok. Acknowledge that and work from here. Notice in your body how you feel when things get too much. Is there rigidity? Tensing? Disassociation that feels like withdrawing into a cave? A feeling of “just wanting to get it done”?

Once you are familiar with the felt sense of your capacity, HONOR IT!!! I cannot emphasize this enough. Capacity will only be built over time if you honor your limit and do not go beyond it. Because only then will you begin to trust yourself, your nervous system will be able to relax as it can rely on you to not push it beyond its boundaries.

Now, over time, in a process of honoring your capacity, trying out new things, coming back, turning to resources, opening again you will build more capacity to be with your feelings and sensations. As you build this capacity you build the trust in your inner sensing and body wisdom.

And that will create more access to your inner knowing, more attunment to your authentic voice and, ultimately, a more embodied life!

Are you aware of your capacity? Do you find it easy or challenging to navigate around your feelings? Let us know and leave a comment below!