07 Aug The Feeling Spectrum
Where are you on the feeling spectrum? It might be helpful to imagine a scale for access to feeling responses, where 0 is no access to feelings and 10 is overwhelmed by feelings all the time. Whether we find it easy to feel or to express our feelings may change over time. When I was young, for instance, I decided I wasn’t going to be like my mother – who had a very different feeling style to me. Under-feeling and over-feeling will be responses to our own complex histories, and may include some adaptive strategies that have been helpful to us. We may also have outgrown defences that no longer serve us.
Are you the person who feels, in a family who seem to be oblivious to their pain? Perhaps you are the one who cries when the latest disaster statistic is mentioned on the news and no-one else appears to blink? How is it to feel so sensitive? Is this fragility or strength? Do you cloak your softness in tough armour? Do you create a persona that is unapproachable to disguise your tender heart?
Or are you at the other end of the feeling spectrum? Perhaps you are one of those who seem to have lost the ability to feel? Maybe something happened long ago, and you decided that it wasn’t safe to feel? Perhaps the only defence that was possible for you was to fight? As a child, did you have no choice but to disconnect, to freeze out the feelings that made you vulnerable, or split off a part of yourself in order to survive?
Whether you recognise yourself in one or the other ends of this spectrum, or somewhere in between, at a Grief Tending workshop, people may begin to look behind the strategies they have developed. Sometimes people feel safe enough to take off their masks – the necessary protective shields they wear in public. I feel privileged to have seen so many people show their un-curated selves, so different to their ‘shiny’ social media appearances.
It is extraordinary to witness long hidden truths, and real expressions of feeling. The perception is often that if my shell is cracked, I will be seen to be broken. But what often happens is that we see how each of us feels inside, which evokes our compassion. We all have places that are vulnerable – where we have been wounded, or feel unworthy. What changes everything is when we see that we are not alone in our imperfections.
Sometimes if we are willing to crack ourselves open, to look inside and process the experience, there may be strength that comes in its wake. Although I would never wish the impacts of developmental trauma on anyone, the ‘trauma growth’ that often strengthens us after we have been through our troubles, (whatever they may be) can be a gift. Working through our pain, can allow us to connect with insights, to cultivate meaning alongside the grief.
Come and explore you are on the feeling spectrum at a Grief tending workshop. You can find our next events and links to book them here.
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