Feel your feelings — it’s a frustrating phrase repeated by countless therapists, authors, and coaches. But if you’ve heard those words and found yourself scratching your head, wondering what exactly it means, don’t worry you are not alone in your confusion. We have all been there, grappling with the vague enigma that is feeling our own feelings. Fear not, because we are about to demystify this elusive concept (it’s actually not as complicated as it seems), and discover the profound impact of truly embracing and understanding our emotions.

I know, I know starting at what feelings are might seem a little rudimentary but it’s an important piece of the puzzle when learning how to feel them. While we often use the words “emotions” and “feelings” interchangeably, they are actually a little different. Emotions are our psychological responses to stimuli that are occurring in our external world or our internal world. Feelings are the physical manifestations and our interpretations of those experiences.

Emotions have a lot of purpose in our lives, but sometimes it can feel like a second language we haven’t quite grasped yet. To start, it can help to think of your emotions as cues or data. Your brain takes in information very quickly and sorts through it. Emotions are its way of communicating back to your conscious mind through your body about the world, and what you may need to do next. Experiencing fear might be your brain interpreting something that is dangerous or could hurt you. Experiencing anger might be your brain trying to alert you to an injustice that it wants you to confront. Experiencing happiness might be your brain telling you to invest more into a positive part of your life. Understanding your emotions is a skill, and something that takes practice, which brings us to our next point.

Since we now know that feelings are physical sensations connected to our emotions, feeling your feelings starts in the body. This is the part most people don’t like. Let’s be honest, the physical sensations of emotions can be super uncomfortable. Think of the last time you felt really scared; your heart was pounding, your hands were sweating, a pit in your stomach began to form and your chest started feeling tight. None of these sensations are particularly enjoyable. And if feeling your feelings wasn’t confusing enough, here comes another common and equally frustrating phrase — you have to sit with your emotions first.

Western culture does not do a great job of teachings us to embrace our emotions. If anything, we are taught to suppress or cope with them so that we no longer feel them. This is the opposite of processing your emotions. Sitting with your feelings is the first step to feeling your feelings. All this means is don’t suppress, don’t run, don’t cope — simply let the physical sensations of the emotions exist in your body. Having meditation or mindfulness practices can help you learn how to sit still and let sensations move through your body.

After sitting with your feelings comes actually feeling your feelings. Start to bring your attention to the physical sensations you are experiencing. Does your throat feel tight or are you fidgeting your leg? Find the parts of your body that have a sensation and observe. Eventually, try to name what emotion you think is connected to that sensation. You may observe when you feel embarrassed your face feels hot, or when you feel worried your stomach feels heavy. Realistically, we frequently have multiple emotions happening at once, but take your time and start with the most obvious. Over time you will learn to sort through the jumble of emotions fighting for your attention.

Emotions have a lot of value and serve many different functions. But the quick and dirty answer is emotions help us navigate our ever-changing world. They provide us with motivation, inform our decisions, help us to connect and understand one another, and they can facilitate our own healing.

As you grow the skill of feeling your feelings, you will be able to unravel the many emotions that come up and better understand why they are coming up. This is called self-awareness. Eventually, you will be able to connect the dots of where you learned certain life lessons, how they inform your feelings, and how you react to those feelings. People often think of emotion as the antithesis to reason, but reason without emotion is uninformed.

Some people learn to connect the dots of their past to their present emotions and behaviors before learning to experience their emotions. This can sometimes cause people to get caught up in over-intellectualizing their feelings. Remember, to feel your feelings — it is this process that allows you to heal from past painful experiences. The body is very good at healing itself. Just as your blood beings to clot around an open wound, attack foreign germs, and rebuild healthy cells without your conscious thought — your psychological self can do a very similar process if you don’t actively hinder it. Experience your emotions and let the process of those sensations morph as they need to without your interference. This may be uncomfortable. You may want to cry, scream, laugh, rock your body, dance, and move — listen and follow instead of trying to dictate. Your emotional self will complete its own process and heal if you are brave enough to let it be your guide.

This is not a process you need to go through alone. It can be incredibly helpful to have a professional, like a therapist act as support as you not only learn how to experience your emotions but to help you navigate healing from your past. It can be scary to confront your own painful experiences and it is normal to want to push them away instead of diving deeper, so enlist any and all help that you need.

Learning to feel your feelings can be frustrating There may be times when it seems an impossible and confusing task. However, embracing our feelings is a vital aspect of our emotional well-being and is well worth the effort. By experiencing our feelings we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us. It can teach us greater empathy, self-awareness, and resilience so that we can be fully present in all of life’s ups and downs. Take a deep breath, hold on tight, and get ready to dive deep into your feelings — for it is in feeling our feelings that we truly come alive.