Making Sense of Felt Sense

“Making Sense of Felt Sense” | Somatic Therapy in Long Island & New York

Feelings can be confusing sometimes. 

Like why do feelings of worry sometimes feel almost the same, inside, as feelings of anticipation or excitement? Why do feelings of love and excitement often mix with feelings of insecurity, or fear?

How is it possible that some of us feel shame or resentment after achieving an almost impossible dream that we had been working toward for years? 

I think the answer to your personal “feelings” lies in the concept of a “felt sense.” There is a remarkable difference between having feelings and having a “felt sense.” Let me explain. 

A “felt sense” is beyond the tangible. 

It is the ability to notice the familiarity of body sensations and begin to connect the dots to other experiences (ones that don’t seem relevant at all until you dig a bit deeper.) It is the ability to recognize our natural patterns, sensations and energy flow in order to trace and repair any of the frayed connections that have caused some wear and tear on our nervous system. 

A feeling is relatively easier to label and identify;

“I feel hurt and lonely because none of my friends are calling me back.”

“I feel overwhelmed because my mom always comes over without calling first.”

“I feel betrayed because you told my boss something I said in confidence.”

It is a more easily noticeable cause and effect. 

Sometimes, therapists who are not somatically trained, may view the acquisition of emotional literacy skills as a “win” and continue to help their client with some cognitive skills to keep up the “progress.” This is a top down approach that proves to be useful in so many circumstances. I use top down approaches all the time to balance the bottom up approaches (which deal with the somatic and more subtle concerns.) Skills like CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy & DBT Dialectical Behavioral Therapy are great for prevention as well.

They can help to shift one’s mindset and build a solid framework for wellbeing. 

But, for a moment, let’s pay attention to when there is something deeper going on…

Let’s look at those feeling scenarios again, but this time, through a “felt sense” lens. 

Your friends aren’t calling you back - And you begin feeling some familiar feelings (that seem to be associated with feelings of abandonment) and it’s pretty likely that your friends have a lot going on and it's nothing personal. Logically you understand that, but your body is telling you a different story. You have familiar sensations... maybe raw, light headed and cloudy?

Your mom has no boundaries - You are feeling some familiar feelings of overwhelm and resentment. It’s likely that you had no idea what boundaries were growing up, let alone how to set and maintain healthy ones. Perhaps you have become a people pleaser and are afraid to tell people your needs. When your mom walks in unannounced, you have some familiar reactions inside your body (that feels similar to all those times in which you pushed beyond your limits to make people happy but always felt resentful.) You feel a choking heaviness in your stomach and chest. A feeling that something is closing in on you near your throat. 

Your co-worker betrayed your trust - Your co-worker told your boss something you had said, and when you look at it in context, you realize it wasn’t that big of a deal, so why are you feeling this rage inside you? Your body is reacting as if your co-worker literally stabbed you in the back (so you feel a sense of overwhelming shame for “overreacting” like it's a massive act of betrayal.) You feel a sense of frozennes and pricklyness in your back. Your face feels hot and your heart won’t stop racing.  

This is the difference between a feeling and a “felt sense.” 

Healing doesn’t necessarily come from feeling the feelings more intensely (as some may tend to think). Rather, long lasting relief and healing comes from noticing the felt sensations attached to the feelings. THEN, you can work to discharge the intensity and begin shifting the body-based story. This is one of the foundational aspects of good somatic therapy, such as somatic experience, sensorimotor psychotherapy- which are body based therapy methods that allow the body and mind to partake in the healing.

“Felt sense” allows us to identify the nuances that weigh in on our feelings. 

The steps we take to heal are not exactly from feeling the intense feelings, but rather, it’s the ability to feel the more descriptive qualities associated with the emotion like the "heaviness" or “the frozenness.” By tapping into the deeper layers of how the body actually feels the feelings, we help the intensity move through and out of the cells of the body.

When we feel into our bodies using our “felt sense”, the intensity gets diffused, bringing our experience to a more tolerable level. This then makes makes processing the emotional experience a lot more tolerable too.  

Ultimate change and process comes from that unclear, intangible, fuzzy, murky "something just feels off and I can’t pinpoint it" kind of awareness. 

If someone never had the opportunity to foster emotional attunement, they might start this journey just learning to identify the obvious emotions they are feeling, and then maybe where those feelings are felt in their body. A “felt sense” might follow when they recognize that there is a lot more to emotions than they had previously thought. There is a more subtle quality that, when connected with, enables a less intense emotional experience. It can even be described as the ability to observe all the qualities without attaching too much significance to it. It feels liberating.  

Once someone masters the “felt sense” they usually say that it was there all along, but they never really connected with it or noticed it. This mastery is not like anything they have felt before. This intuitive quality is a life altering epiphany. It is a new way to relate to the world and to yourself. It opens up a whole new beauty - like finally seeing things as they are because you finally got glasses that you never knew you needed. 

Living Mindfully with Somatic Awareness

Take a moment to be mindful of who you are, what your environment feels like and how this information lands on you as you digest it.

If you’re reading this because you’ve been curious about engaging in some somatic focused therapy for your own self, be it somatic experience, somatic intervention or attachment focused sensorimotor psychotherapy, I invite you to reach out here.

At Integrative Psychotherapy we help clients engage in body-focused healing so they can live more wholesomely.

We use scientific based methods such as EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Internal Family Systems/ Parts work, Somatic Therapy, Expressive Arts and More.

If you live in New York or Long Island, and are seeking counseling, reach out today for your free 15 minute consultation to see how we can help you feel better.  

Inspired by the work of Eugene T. Gendlin