Feel it to Heal it
In Episode 243 of my podcast with guest Dr. Russell Kennedy, the theme that we need to “feel it to heal it” (by “it”, we mean anxiety) came up several times during the conversation. But what does that mean? What does it look like? Well, I can start by sharing what “feel it to heal it” doesn’t look like because I spent most of my life becoming very adept at short cutting feeling anxiety. Why? Because anxiety feels like garbage; it makes me squirm in my skin; it creates doubt and uncertainty; and sometimes it’s downright terrifying and overwhelming. Some of the most common ways I’ve tried to short cut feeling anxiety are seeking reassurance (from my husband or Dr. Google), ruminating, avoiding, distracting, excessive exercise, becoming rigid with the food I eat, and so many more. I’m a sucker for doubling down when I feel stressed, even though what my nervous system really needs is rest and flexibility, and for controlling any area or my life that isn’t pinned to the ground.
All of these worked to relieve my anxiety, for a time, and that relief triggered the dopamine reward system, creating a trigger (anxiety) - behavior (reassurance) - reward (relief) habit that unfortunately reinforces anxiety. For example, if I seek reassurance when I’m experiencing health anxiety, that feels good, for like a minute, but then it reinforces the narrative that I’m only safe if I’m seeking reassurance and eliminating all doubt, which we know isn’t feasible. In addition, that dopamine system is greedy. It wants more, and more, and more of whatever brought us that initial relief in the first place. More distractions, more reassurance, more chips, more booze, etc. Before we know it, seeking relief is more debilitating than the anxiety itself. In contrast, feeling our way through anxiety (when we can) allows us to process and integrate our emotions so that we don’t get caught in a cycle that reinforces anxiety.
Feeling our way through starts with noticing that we’re feeling “off” in the first place, which takes some degree of self-awareness. We can cultivate that self-awareness in many ways: mindfulness meditation being one of the most well-known and researched strategies. Next, feeling our way through involves naming the emotion. Naming the emotion(s) we are feeling requires use of the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for top-down emotional regulation, among many other functions. Between noticing and naming our emotion, we’re acknowledging our experience, making ourselves feel seen and heard, which cultivates a FELT (we feel it in our body vs. know it logically) sense of safety and security in our body.
But what happens if we’re completely hijacked by anxiety? Well, this is where dropping into our body to feel what’s happening can be helpful (if we’re not too overwhelmed by our bodily experience), because this is bottom-up emotional regulation, which uses our body to settle the mind when our mind is offline and unavailable to help settle the body.
Tune in to the episode to hear more of what this process of feeling your way through anxiety looks like!
