‘Sit with your feelings’ ‘Reframe your thinking’ How do I actually do this?

[SunshineonLeaves]

My counsellor says I can’t change the past (obviously) or other people’s behaviour so I need to do the above but I don’t understand how - if it was that easy to change my feelings I would! Can anyone share how they’ve managed to do this please?

The whole sit with your feelings thing, is just that. Instead of going on instagram and distracting yourself, just sit and think it through. Yes, it sucks. Sit there. This thing happened. How do i feel about, Who else was involved. What were they thinking, etc. How do i wish it went. Why didnt it?
Before TV this was all we did. And practical chores. While we thought about stuff.

You see, I disagree with this. My DH had severe anxiety and used to sit there thinking all the time. It just made it all worse. How can dwelling on things make anything better?

Much better to accept x happened and then deciding that you’re not going to let it affect you. Well that’s what I do and it seems to have worked for my DH. He was so anxious at one point he couldn’t leave the bedroom and didn’t go out the house for 2 years. Then something just clicked and he stopped letting anxiety control him.

Sit with your feelings doesn’t mean sit thinking it through.
It means let the thoughts and feelings come and go, don’t catch onto them, extend them, don’t dwell or create scenarios.
Notice your feelings, don’t judge them, notice their effect on your body and let them go
If you research mindfulness for anxiety it will probably point you in right direction

It's not about ignoring or dismissing the feelings. Processing is all part of healing.

My STBEH is a pig and the situation right now is hard. Today he made me cry. But I will reframe if that every day is a day closer to getting away and he won't be able to do it again.

Therapy helps too.

I'm doing lots of trying to sit with my feelings. I've realized that for years, whenever uncomfortable feelings came up I would do my best to suppress, ignore, distract. So that might be watching TV, listening to audiobooks, podcasts, drinking a glass of wine, work (that was a big one for me) etc - anything rather than just sit, be quiet and curious about my feelings and letting them move through me. On a cerebral/cognitive level I'd addressed and understood my history but I hadn't allowed myself to really feel it. I've been crying more, journaling and trying to make some time for quiet reflection.

I’m a MH nurse. The first stage to “sitting with your feelings” is actually being aware of your feelings NOT your thoughts. What does your body feel like right now? What does being angry or anxious or frustrated actually feel like in your body? Can you feel it in your hands? Your stomach? Your chest? We spend so much time distracting ourselves from our bodies, living inside our thoughts and ruminating/thought spiralling. It’s your body that experienced the trauma and so it wants your attention. Once you’re a bit more in tune with your feelings you can start to pay attention to which situations trigger overwhelming feelings. Overwhelming feelings happen when our bodies try to communicate with us that a situation is becoming difficult but we aren’t listening. This is why it can feel like our emotions go from 0 to 100 without any warning. See if you can spot any “telltale signs” (for example feeling cold or shaky) and try to self soothe/be kind to yourself before it leads to a crisis point. Are there any techniques you can use to help self soothe?
It can be difficult to start working on this as a trauma survivor. Many trauma survivors are very numb and have been protecting themselves from their own feelings for many years. This is why the idea of “sitting with your feelings” sounds so strange. Becoming aware of your body takes practice and you will have to be very kind to yourself at first. I would ask your counsellor for some grounding work to help make this a bit easier and less overwhelming.

One of the best things I did was to understand that what other people do has very little to do with you.
It's their own feelings, emotions and needs that drive them

Don't let their actions define who you are.
Hand their actions back to them, leave them behind you

I experienced bullying in the workplace and it was helpful to understand that although what they did was wrong, it wasn't going to define me going forward.
So I left it in the past, acknowledged my feelings and moved forward
It's done, gone and my focus was directed to a new job and how I wanted my life to be.
I can't believe how happy I am now.

Don't be afraid of your feelings, they cannot hurt you. Notice the feelings in your body. Don't distract yourself, no matter how painful they are. Tolerate them and notice that eventually even the most difficult and painful feelings will fade away.

If you avoid the feelings and keep distracting yourself, those feelings will keep on coming back. They will continue to negatively affect your life.

Let them exist. Experience them. Sooner than you think, they will pass.

There is a difference between rumination (bad) and “sitting with your feelings” as your therapist is suggesting.

When people experience an inability to let go of the past we have to ask what is really being hung in to? People hang on to past hurts, conflicts, interactions, conversations, feelings. They hang in to them and revisit them bdcause they imagine that they are doing something necessary. Perhaps if you go over it it will resolve differently? Perhaps the injustice will be reversed? Perhaps the feeling will be lifted?

In reality we can’t affect the past at all by revisiting it or ruminating about it anymore than we can eat the piece of cake we ate for tea ten years ago.

Sitting with your feelings means accepting that you gave strong negative feelings about something and your feelings can’t be blocked or wished away—but neither can they be resolved without attention and acceptance.

Sometimes people are angry about something, feel stifled, and then become sad and depressed. Sometimes they are sad and depressed and it comes out as anger. Drillling down, noticing the core feeling, and accepting it (though it may be frightening or disruptive) is the best way of resolving these emotions and moving on from being stuck.

It’s about acknowledging your feelings and increasing your ability to cope with discomfort and trust that you will not be damaged by it. It’s about noticing when you’re ruminating and obsessing and fixating on things that you can’t change (the past, other people, etc) and pulling back from the intensity of those thoughts and allowing yourself to name the feelings.

See if you can separate the feelings themselves from the ‘story’.

So, you pull back from the thoughts ‘why did they do that? Why does everyone always abandon me?’ and instead notice how your body feels, notice your emotional state. Don’t try to ‘solve’ it through distraction or cognitive problem solving or assigning blame. But recognise ‘I feel angry’ or ‘I feel lonely’ or ‘my heart aches’. And just stay with noticing things on that level.

It takes a lot of practice, but it does really help

Reframing thoughts is really about noticing your habitual interpretations of things, and opening your mind to different interpretations. If the sense you make of life events tends to go a certain way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy E.g. if you tend to think ‘X always happens to me’ then you will work less hard towards a different outcome - because what’s the point? Or if you tend to think ‘everything is always my fault’ then you won’t recognise when someone is exploiting you or treating you badly. So it’s important to recognise your habitual interpretations of life events and practise considering different ones. (This becomes much easier when you are more specifically aware of what you’re feeling, thanks to ‘sitting with your feelings’.

Many people just feel ‘bad’ and turn their attention away before they can recognise whether ‘bad’ is ‘angry’ or ‘sad’ or ‘scared’ or what. Sitting with the feelings helps you begin to differentiate between them, and this gives you important information.

A feeling can generally be described in a word. I feel sad. I feel anxious. A thought is more words. So we can have thoughts about feelings.

Sometimes just trying to identify which emotion it is you have mainly at the moment is helpful.

I think this is a really helpful post - thank you!

Sit with your feelings means literally sit and experience your feelings. Let thoughts come and go but don't engage in them.

If you are uncertain do a body scan meditation off u tube

Look at your thoughts are you letting them rule how you feel. Thoughts are just thoughts they don't mean anything you can listen or you can let them move on

it maybe that CBT isn't for you.
Some people don't get on with it.
I'd look for a different therapist and a different type of therapy.

I'm going to sound very ignorant, but here goes. How often, and how long should you be sitting with your feelings? And how do you distinguish between feelings and thoughts?!

This is so helpful, thank you so much to those who have responded 😢 I need to do this to get me past the past but it’s not easy.

I did ask my counsellor today if this was the best therapy for me. I’m not sure if you need to deal with the past to be better for the future.

Something like yoga or pilates may help with this in so much as it helps you focus on physical feelings (comfortable/uncomfortable, tight/loose etc) without judgement (today I can but if I can’t next time that’s ok) and once in the habit of recognising those feelings as impermanent hopefully it will follow for other feelings too

Some v helpful posts. Especially the one by the MH nurse, thank you!

I've had CBT before and the techniques were useful but when I had emdr (for trauma) that felt transformative.

I'm going through this just now and slowly realising the very big difference between rumination and Mindfulness. I've learned that my rumination is a form of OCD where I am seeking validation and reassurance through internal arguments and non stop reasoning I have in my own head. I always thought not giving them attention meant I was 'avoiding' my issues and running away from them. Actually now that I understand it better I can 'sit with my thoughts' in a way that I can see them for what they are and how they make they feel and why I might be having them. But that doesn't mean I have to give the content of those thoughts any credit or time...that will just lead to the rumination cycle again. It is very difficult to do and I've only recently started being able to do it with the support of a very good therapist.

@SunshineonLeaves I've been doing a lot of work too recently of my past experiences and some key concepts I've learned which you might feel helpful to look in to are:

the window of tolerance - when you are outside of your window of tolerance the only aim is to get back in to it. Don't try to sit with your feelings when you are outside of your window of tolerance.

Schema therapy and thinking about how you are talking to yourself when you sit with your feelings...is your critical parent voice the one doing all the talking?

And there is a rather long winded analogy of the captain of your ship which has been really helpful to me. I won't type it all out here but If you want more info let me know and I can try to explain it.

@Higgeldypickeldy this sounds so interesting and relevant, happy for you to pm me or post here so other people can also benefit.

I really need to move forward but it feels all on me to do which is a bit counter-productive

@SunshineonLeaves I can relate to your comment : "it feels all on me to do which is a bit counter-productive". I have a great therapist who is helping me massively but sometimes I feel the weight of it 'all being in my own head'. It's very much an internal battle of thoughts and it can easily feel overwhelming. But I'm starting to feel like the positive, authoritative and rational voice is starting to talk louder than the critical, shamed voice which is the first time ever and been a long time coming. Stick with it and I hope you can feel some benefits soon. Lots of unmumsnetty hugs, it's tough!

I'll write more about the ship analogy in the next day or two.

@Higgeldypickeldy weve spoken on a different thread as well, you’re clearly on my wavelength. Appreciate you taking the time to share

Some very good posts on here.