A question I get often: “But what if you don’t know how to feel your feelings? What if you’re so used to blocking them that you can’t tap into them?”
I used to be very much in that camp. Here’s what helped me learn how to feel your feelings when they’ve been shut down for years.
Open the Channels
To start feeling what I couldn’t feel, I began using sad or moody music and movies to help me access emotions I couldn’t find on my own.
That started to open some of the emotional channels. I would allow myself to go as deep into any feeling that came up as I wanted, without judgment. Sometimes that meant crying for an hour. Sometimes it meant sitting in rage.
The content wasn’t the point. The permission was.
I needed something external to break through my internal walls. Once those walls cracked open, even a little, I could start accessing what was behind them on my own.
Why We Block
Most of us learned to block feelings because feeling them wasn’t safe at some point. Maybe emotions were punished. Maybe they were ignored. Maybe you learned that being okay meant not feeling too much.
That protection made sense then. But it’s hurting you now. Learning how to feel your feelings means unlearning the idea that feelings are dangerous.
The body remembers what the mind has forgotten. Those blocked emotions are still in there, waiting. They didn’t go away just because you stopped feeling them. They just went underground.
What Happens When We Block
Blocked feelings don’t disappear. They leak out sideways. They show up as anxiety with no clear cause. As numbness. As the inability to feel joy or connection.
They also show up in the body. Tension you can’t release. Pain that won’t go away. Exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix.
When you learn how to feel your feelings, you’re not just becoming more emotional. You’re becoming more alive. You’re reclaiming parts of yourself you shut away.
The Practice
Start small. Put on music that tends to evoke emotion. Watch a movie that typically makes people cry. Give yourself permission to feel whatever comes up.
Don’t force it. Just create the conditions and see what happens.
When something stirs, stay with it. Don’t analyze it. Don’t try to understand it. Just feel it moving through your body. Let it be whatever it is.
This is shadow work in action.
If you’re ready to process what’s been running your life, explore the Shadow Work practices.
Building the Muscle
The more you practice, the less you need external triggers. Eventually, you can access feelings directly. You can feel sadness without needing a sad movie. You can feel joy without needing good news.
That’s the goal: direct access to your own emotional experience. It takes time, but the channels do open. And when they do, everything changes.
You’ll start to notice emotions earlier, before they build up. You’ll move through them faster because you’re not resisting. You’ll feel more connected to yourself and to others.
The numbness will lift. The aliveness will return. Not all at once, but steadily, as you practice the art of feeling what’s actually there.