Ever notice how you may get “butterflies in your stomach” when you feel nervous? Or how when you get angry your throat tightens up or your fists start to clench? Or how when you’re sad you feel a heaviness in your heart? These are examples of the mind-body connection (MBC). Our emotions and our body sensations are connected. There is so much excellent information on the web about MBC, including scientific evidence and tips for how to cultivate and use MBC. Here I’d like to share about how I use MBC in sessions with my clients.
Mind-Body Connection is a superpower that we humans have.
It’s a superpower because noticing our body sensations can help us understand our feelings. So in my sessions with clients, I’m looking for signals about body sensations and I’m asking about them. For example, “I notice your jaw looks really tight at the moment. What do you sense there?” Or, “You seem slumped forward right now. I wonder if you’re feeling some heaviness?” We then follow the client’s response to start to explore, and often what we notice are feelings. “Yep, I’m angry about what my partner said to me yesterday.” “Yeah, as we’ve been talking about my upcoming visit with my parents, I just feel really sad. I don’t know why.”
So the body sensations lead us to feelings, and then the feelings lead us to…. lots of different, important things. A couple of biggies are:
Feelings help us identify and work through Past Overwhelming Experiences.
We may have past experiences that were really hard, painful, or traumatic. We never got the chance to really work it through, and suddenly those feelings come up again and again. For example, “I’m angry about what my partner said” might lead to remembering, “The whole class laughed at me when I got a math problem wrong,” and how humiliating that felt, and, “I’m really angry they did that to me.” Or noticing sadness about the upcoming parent visit may lead to, “My mom used to scream at me for leaving wet towels in my room,” and how scary that was, and, “I’m really sad about what young-me had to go through.”
Feelings help us identify our Needs.
Feelings can give us clues to important needs that we have. For example (I’ll use the same two feelings as above, but in this example leading to different discoveries), “I’m angry about what my partner said,” might lead to, “I need my partner to understand how important my sleep is to me. I need to feel my partner hears me and cares about me.” Or noticing sadness about the upcoming parent visit may reveal, “I just feel like I have to fake it when I’m with them, and it makes me so sad. I need to be able to be myself, and I want them to accept me.”
Feelings and Needs are the Golden Ticket.
When we can identify our needs, we can ask for what we want. We can use boundaries to protect ourselves, and we can start to be who we really are and have the kind of connections and life that we really want.
Body sensations —> Feelings —> Identifying needs —> Being who we really are, going for what we really want.
I welcome to hear more about how this may resonate with you. You can also check out my related article Your Body is Wise – Figuring Out vs. Feeling In. And feel free to reach out for a free 15-minute phone consultation to explore if working with me could be helpful to you!
