One of the hardest concepts for people to grasp in therapy is the idea of “sitting with your feelings.” Every time I have suggested this to a patient, I get the same response: a slight tilt of the head and a quizzical look. Seconds after I suggest the idea of sitting with their anger, sadness, or frustration, I get the inevitable question of “how?”
When I started going to therapy, the emotion I was most in touch with was anger. Sadness was buried. Happiness fleeting. Rage could be summoned with the wrong kind of look from a stranger or a stray thought about a real or imagined annoyance. I could be in that feeling all day long, often acting on it in subtle ways, mostly toward myself, sometimes projecting it onto others. I wasn't sitting in my feelings; I was stewing in them.
So what's the difference?
Stewing is a form of rumination where one dwells on a distressing thought, emotion, or situation on a loop. I often wouldn’t know I was angry; I would act out and then realize, oh, look, you're pissed. Once aware of the rage, I would fixate on something or many frustrating things, which would only increase the feeling, making me want to engage in more destructive behavior or thinking. I never stopped to try to understand where the feeling came from. I never asked myself “How did it start?” Or “What precipitated it?” Or, “Now that I know I'm angry, what do I want to do with it? I reacted instead of responding.
Sitting with your feelings is different. After years of my own therapy, practicing observing myself in new ways, I am aware of my feelings not just in thoughts but in my body. I feel the feeling everywhere. Anger often appears as a tension headache or a stomach ache for me; sadness can feel like heaviness in my chest or legs. Once aware I’m having a strong emotion, I accept it and try not to judge it. As I attempt to understand where it came from and why I’m in it, I notice the feeling lessens instead of intensifying. Sitting with it lets it pass through me rather than getting lodged and stuck in places that cause discomfort or anguish.
Therapy is incredibly useful in practicing this skill in real time with another person. Another great tool I use is tarot.
When I feel like I’m teetering between stewing and sitting, I pull a card or give myself a full reading. Every card is connected to an element and an emotional experience. If I am angry and I pull the Three of Swords (often associated with emotional pain and heartbreak), I let myself consider whether there are other emotions beneath the anger. If I’m feeling sad and can't quite put my finger on why, pulling the Six of Wands could help me consider whether the reason is that I am feeling overlooked or less confident in myself than usual. The card becomes the mirror that reflects back what I couldn’t see in myself on my own. This allows me to be open to understanding my feelings in new ways, so I can sit with them long enough for them to move into a less active place, or altogether pass.
I know that when I say to a patient, “Can you sit with this feeling?” It can be scary and frustrating. It may even feel like I’m asking them to do the impossible; I know it's felt that way for me at times. But as they do it more, just as I did, the agency felt in being able to manage hard emotions in new ways is worth the moments of discomfort in the process. Sitting with your feelings will make them yours, something that you move through, not something that is moving you.
