Trueform Therapy

Tag: mindfulness

  • Learning to Sit With Your Emotions: How to Feel Without Needing to Know Why

    The Common Moment in Therapy

    “I don’t know why I feel this way.” Have you ever said that out loud while sitting with a friend or a counsellor, trying to make sense of what you’re feeling? I know I’ve been there. Sitting there, feeling the wheels of my mind turning, searching for any possible reason that could explain what I feel. And the thing is, whenever I go looking for a reason, I’ll always find one. I’ll explain a feeling away with whatever makes the most sense in that moment. That’s the left side of the brain doing what it does best: filling in the gaps, not worrying whether it’s true, only that it fits.

    I know I’m not alone in this. (Yes, you — I’m talking to you.) I’ve heard that same sentence from so many clients in therapy, and it’s what made me want to write about it. The idea of not knowing exactly where a feeling comes from often brings up guilt or frustration, as if not knowing is some kind of personal failure. Like being unsure of your feelings means you’ve somehow failed at being a person.

    But not being able to name or explain what you feel isn’t a sign of disconnection. I’d actually argue it might be the opposite. We live in a culture that teaches us to name and categorise everything (maybe because it makes us feel safe, because uncertainty is uncomfortable). And somewhere along the way, we started applying that same rule to emotions. The moment a feeling shows up (especially an uncomfortable one), we’re told to identify it, label it, find it on the emotions wheel (have you ever been shown one of those?), then analyse it, explain it, and make sure we can justify why it’s there. To me, that sounds like an exhausting process for something that, physiologically, only lasts about 90 seconds. Wouldn’t it be kinder to just let ourselves feel it, instead of rushing to understand it?

    Our Obsession With Knowing

    We live in a culture that worships knowing. From a young age, we’re taught that the goal is to figure things out, to analyse, to explain. Uncertainty means you haven’t done enough. Remember school? There was always a right answer, and if you didn’t know it, you just had to try harder. That lesson sticks.

    As adults, we bring that same mindset into our emotional world. We treat feelings like problems to be solved instead of experiences to be felt. We think if we can just understand why we feel something, then we’ll have done it “right.”

    Iain McGilchrist writes beautifully about this — how our culture has become dominated by the left hemisphere of the brain, the side that values logic, categorisation, and control. It’s brilliant at making sense of things, but it also struggles to leave space for what can’t be neatly explained. And when that part of the brain takes over, we start to believe that knowing equals competence. That not knowing means failure.

    So we analyse, interpret, and overthink our own emotions. We chase explanations instead of sitting with the actual feeling. It’s as if we can’t allow ourselves to simply be until we’ve written a full essay on why we’re feeling sad, angry, or lost.

    What Happens When We Overthink Our Feelings

    Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor talks about something called the 90-second rule: the idea that an emotion, as a physiological experience, only lasts about a minute and a half. That’s how long it takes for the chemicals triggered by an emotion to move through the body. After that, what keeps the feeling going isn’t biology — it’s thought.

    Emotions are meant to rise, peak, and pass. They’re waves, not storms. But when we start analysing them (Why do I feel this way? What does it mean? Should I be feeling this?), we keep activating the same emotional response over and over again. It’s like hitting “refresh” on a page we don’t actually want to stay on.

    That’s how sadness turns into heaviness, how anger lingers as resentment, how fear becomes anxiety. Overanalysis traps us in a feedback loop where we’re no longer feeling the original emotion, just the story we’ve built around it.

    And it can happen with any emotion. For some people, sadness feels unsafe. For others, it’s anger or even joy. So the mind steps in to manage it, to think it away, to control it, to make it make sense. But all that thinking just keeps us stuck inside the feeling we were trying to escape in the first place.

    Therapy and the Value of Unknowing

    Even in therapy, the “why” mindset sneaks in. We’re trained to look for root causes, to find patterns, to make meaning out of everything that hurts. And while understanding can be powerful, I’ve learnt that searching for answers too soon can actually pull us away from what’s most alive in the room: the feeling itself.

    There was a time when I thought that was the work. Help people figure out their feelings. Make sense of them. But over time, I started to notice that the moments of real change didn’t come from explanation. They came from presence. From slowing down enough to actually be with what was happening, without rushing to label or fix it.

    I’ve had to learn that myself too. I grew up in the same culture that values analysis over experience, knowing over feeling. So learning to stay with uncertainty, to resist the urge to tidy things up, has been a slow and ongoing process. To this day, I still catch myself trying to decode something instead of sitting with it.

    It’s something I still work on, too. As a therapist and as a person.

    What It Means to “Stay With” a Feeling

    So what does it actually mean to stay with a feeling? It’s simpler than it sounds and harder than it looks. It means noticing what’s happening inside you without rushing to understand or change it.

    You might feel your chest tighten or your stomach drop. Maybe your jaw tenses or your breath gets shallow. Staying with it means allowing those sensations to be there, without turning them into a story. No analysis, no self-critique, no “why”. Just noticing.

    It’s about presence, not understanding. Acceptance, not control. Letting the feeling move through instead of trying to pin it down.

    If you want to try this, the next time you notice a strong emotion, pause before asking, ‘Why am I feeling this?’ Instead, see if you can bring your attention to your body. What do you notice? Where do you feel it? You don’t need to name it or make sense of it. Maybe do a slow scan from your head to your feet, or just follow the rhythm of your breath for a minute. That’s it.

    It’s a practice that doesn’t offer quick answers, but over time, it builds a kind of trust in yourself. The kind that doesn’t depend on knowing, only on being.

    The Reframe: Understanding Comes Later

    Staying with your feelings doesn’t mean giving up on understanding. Insight isn’t lost. It just arrives differently. When we allow ourselves to fully experience a feeling without rushing to explain it, understanding tends to emerge naturally, in its own time.

    This is how the therapeutic process often works. When safety and acceptance are in place, reflection comes on its own. Clarity shows up after presence, not before it. You don’t need to force it.

    So if you’re sitting with an emotion and feel uncertain, remind yourself: it’s okay not to know yet. You’re simply feeling. And for now, that’s enough.

    In therapy, we make space for not knowing. That’s often where the real work begins: in the unknowing, in the pause before explanation.

    If you recognise this in yourself, if you notice the urge to figure things out instead of just feeling them, there’s a way to explore it with support. You can practise sitting with what’s here, noticing it, and letting it pass, without needing all the answers right now.

    If You’re Interested in Reading More

    If you want to dig deeper into the ideas I’ve mentioned here, these are a couple of great places to start:

    • Jill Bolte Taylor’s work on the neuroscience of emotions and the 90-second rule, which explains how emotions naturally rise and pass: My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (2008).
    • Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary (2019) explores how our culture and left-brain–dominant thinking shape the way we perceive and interpret the world.

    Both offer fascinating insights into how our minds work and why learning to sit with feelings, rather than immediately trying to explain them, can make such a difference.

  • Here’s exactly how your brain filters the world, based on what you focus on

    You might think of your brain as a thinking organ. It is. But it’s also a pattern hoarder with zero chill. It quietly collects whatever you keep showing it — thoughts, emotions, behaviours — and decides, “Ah, this must be important.” Not because it makes sense, but because it keeps happening.

    This isn’t a metaphor. It’s structure. Neural pathways strengthen through repetition. The more often a particular network is activated (the one that predicts failure in advance just in case), the more efficient and automatic it becomes. Not because it’s helpful. Just because it’s been rehearsed.

    In other words, your brain is running a custom algorithm. And like any algorithm, it’s not judging the quality of your input. It’s just learning from what you click on the most.

    Pattern, Not Coincidence

    There’s a part of your brain called the reticular activating system, or RAS. It doesn’t get much attention, but it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes. Its main job is to filter the endless stream of sensory information you’re exposed to and highlight what seems relevant.

    How does it know what’s relevant? You tell it. Not with a formal request, but through repetition. If you’ve spent the last few weeks fixating on worst-case scenarios, the RAS assumes those are important and starts pointing them out everywhere. It’s not trying to ruin your day. It’s just following instructions.

    This is why a random comment might feel sharper than it should, or why certain themes seem to keep showing up in your relationships. The brain isn’t uncovering deep truths. It’s just tagging familiar patterns and pushing them to the front of your awareness.

    What feels like intuition can sometimes be training. And what looks like coincidence is often a mental filter doing its job a little too well.

    Focus Leaves a Trace

    Your brain doesn’t ask whether a thought is useful. It just asks how often it shows up. If it sees the same idea walking past its mental front door every day, it assumes you’re into it and starts rolling out the red carpet.

    This is how worry becomes efficient. Comparison too. Spend enough time thinking about what might go wrong, what everyone else is doing better, or how you’re probably the problem, and your brain goes, “Ah, excellent, I’ve seen this before. Let me speed things up for you.”

    The same process applies to patience, boundaries, or checking in with yourself before replying to that one text. These pathways also get stronger with repetition, though they might feel less natural at first. Not because they’re less you, but because your mental muscles have been at the gym for entirely different workouts.

    Neural efficiency is not a compliment. It just means your brain is saving energy by automating whatever you rehearse the most, like a slightly overeager intern who alphabetised your worst-case scenarios and now updates them daily.

    Paying Attention as Daily Practice

    You don’t need to stage a full mental intervention to shift your attention. It doesn’t have to be deep, dramatic, or perfectly timed. Subtle counts. So does quiet. Most of the work begins by simply noticing where your attention keeps landing when you’re not trying to steer it.

    If your mind drifts toward planning, pleasing, scanning for threats, or composing an imaginary argument with someone who hasn’t texted back, that’s not a personal failure. That’s data. Your brain is just showing you which patterns it’s gotten good at.

    The goal isn’t to control every thought. It’s to get curious about what’s showing up most often and whether those patterns feel helpful, familiar, exhausting, or all three.

    Some practical ways to begin:

    • Make time to sit with yourself before jumping into input. No podcasts, no notifications. Just a few minutes of your own mind being weird in peace.
    • Keep a simple log. You don’t need insights. Just track what kinds of thoughts or feelings keep circling back.
    • Open a Notion page or grab a notebook and list qualities you’d like to get more familiar with. Maybe it’s calm. Maybe it’s self-respect. Maybe it’s remembering to eat before 4pm. No need to force it. Just put them where you can see them.

    Attention is a practice, not a performance. You’re not trying to get it right. You’re just showing up often enough for your brain to notice.

    Focus as a Form of Care

    Identity isn’t a fixed thing. It’s built through repetition in the small, ordinary ways you return to what matters, even when it doesn’t feel urgent or dramatic.

    Focus, in this sense, becomes a kind of quiet loyalty. Each time you redirect your attention, you’re reinforcing a thread that ties you to yourself. Not to a polished version, but to one that feels more deliberate, more aligned with what steadies you.

    You might notice this in the way you come back to a boundary, even when it’s uncomfortable. Or in how you reread something that helps you feel more grounded. Or in the moments when you let a thought sit without rushing to label it or fix it.

    These small choices leave a trace. Over time, they create a shape that feels less like reaction and more like rhythm.

    Attention has momentum. The more often you land somewhere, the easier it becomes to return. Over time, that path gets smoother, more familiar, and more automatic. This happens not because the destination is always useful, but because it’s been practised.

    Of course, this isn’t a fix. It’s a framework. A way to notice what’s shaping your inner landscape without needing to force it into something else.

    If you do nothing else, just pay attention to where your focus tends to drift when you’re not directing it. That alone can interrupt a loop. You don’t need to change the pattern in that moment. You just need to see it clearly enough that repetition stops being invisible.

    That’s where something different can begin.

  • Why Am I Feeling This? Learning to Decode Your Emotions

    You’re not crazy for crying at a yoghurt commercial.

    Or snapping at your partner over a dishwasher situation that was really about… everything else.

    Maybe you’ve felt totally overwhelmed lately. But when someone asks how you are, all you can say is “I’m just tired.” Except it’s not just tired. It’s something messier. Sadness? Anger? Guilt with a splash of existential dread?

    Most of us were never taught what emotions really are, let alone how to understand emotions when they show up. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or stuck in a loop of “What is wrong with me?”, you’re not alone.

    This post is for you if:

    • You’ve ever said, “I don’t even know what I’m feeling.”
    • You grew up in a “We don’t do feelings” kind of home.
    • You’re trying to function, but something inside feels… off.

    The truth is: emotions aren’t random. And they’re definitely not a sign you’re broken.
    They’re messages. From you, to you.

    In this post, we’ll explore:

    • What emotions are actually for
    • Why you might struggle to name or express them
    • How to gently start decoding your emotional world
    • Why therapy can help. Even if you don’t feel “bad enough” for it

    Let’s begin with the basics: what are emotions, really?

    What Are Emotions, Really? (And Why Should You Care?)

    Let’s clear something up: emotions are not the enemy.

    They’re not weaknesses to conquer or distractions to suppress. They’re not even “good” or “bad.”
    They’re data.

    Your emotions are your nervous system’s way of saying, “Hey, something’s happening. Pay attention.”

    Think of them as the body’s internal notification system:

    • Anxiety might mean “something feels unsafe or unpredictable.”
    • Sadness could be saying, “I’ve lost something that mattered.”
    • Anger? Often, it’s “a boundary’s been crossed.”

    But here’s the problem: if you were never taught how to decode your emotional notifications, they start piling up. Like 47 unopened emails from your inner self.

    And when those feelings don’t get heard, they don’t just disappear. They often turn into:

    • Chronic stress or burnout
    • Disconnection from yourself and others
    • Physical symptoms (hello, headaches and tight shoulders)
    • Patterns of behaviour that don’t make sense — until you look underneath

    This is why learning emotional awareness isn’t fluff. It’s survival. It helps you:

    • Make decisions that are actually right for you
    • Build relationships that feel safe
    • Stop living on autopilot or constantly second-guessing yourself

    Knowing what you feel is the first step to knowing what you need.
    And when you start listening, everything else starts to shift.

    Why Is It So Hard to Know What I’m Feeling?

    If you’ve ever sat in a therapy session and thought, “I don’t know what I feel. I just feel… off,” you’re not alone.

    Many people struggle to name their emotions. In fact, there’s a word for that: alexithymia. It literally means “no words for emotions.” And while it’s sometimes linked to neurodivergence or trauma, it can also show up in anyone who didn’t grow up in a home where feelings were named, welcomed, or made sense of.

    If your childhood version of “talking about feelings” looked more like:

    • “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”
    • “You’re too sensitive”
    • Or silence so loud you could hear it ringing in your chest

    …then emotional awareness isn’t something you’re bad at.
    It’s something you were never taught.

    Sometimes people with alexithymia or emotional disconnect aren’t cold or unfeeling. They’re overwhelmed, shut down, or have had to over-rely on logic to feel safe. That’s a nervous system strategy, not a personality flaw.

    The good news? Emotional awareness can be learnt.
    And no, it doesn’t involve staring in a mirror and repeating affirmations (unless that’s your thing; you do you).

    It starts with small things, like:

    • Expanding your emotional vocabulary beyond “fine” and “stressed”
    • Noticing how different emotions feel in your body
    • Asking yourself, “What happened right before I started feeling like this?”

    So if you’re someone who often says “I don’t know” when asked how you feel, that’s not a dead end.
    It’s just a starting point.

    What Happens When You Suppress Emotions for Too Long?

    You don’t stop feeling just because you stop noticing your feelings. Emotions are sneaky like that. When we suppress them, either consciously or because we were never taught how to process them, they don’t just disappear. They go underground. And eventually, they come out sideways.

    Sometimes that looks like:

    • Snapping at someone for breathing too loudly
    • Crying over a burnt piece of toast
    • Getting physically ill with stress-related symptoms
    • Feeling constantly “on edge” but having no clue why

    Suppressing emotions over time doesn’t make you stronger. It just makes you tired. And often? Burnt out, shut down, or stuck in a loop of overthinking.

    It’s also worth knowing: long-term emotional suppression can have a real impact on your mental health. Research links it to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and even physical health issues. Your nervous system wasn’t designed to carry all your feelings in a locked box forever, especially without a key.

    This doesn’t mean you need to start “feeling your feelings” 24/7 or become an emotional detective overnight. But recognising that your emotions have a job and that job is to signal what matters can shift how you respond to them.

    Think of emotions like internal emails. You might not want to open them, but ignoring them usually leads to a messy inbox and a few “URGENT” subject lines showing up eventually.

    What Does It Actually Mean to “Feel Your Feelings”?

    We hear this advice all the time. “You need to feel your feelings.” Okay… but what does that actually mean? Do we sit in a dark room and cry for hours? Do we punch pillows? Journal furiously until the pen runs out?

    Not necessarily.

    Feeling your feelings means making space to notice what’s going on inside you, instead of pushing it away, distracting yourself, or pretending everything’s fine.

    It means:

    • Noticing the tightness in your chest and wondering if it’s sadness or stress
    • Naming the hot flush in your cheeks as anger, not just “being dramatic”
    • Letting yourself admit “I’m hurt” without trying to justify why you shouldn’t be

    It’s the opposite of bottling things up or gaslighting yourself. And it’s not just for “emotional people.” In fact, people who’ve gone numb or shut down often need this the most, especially if you relate to alexithymia, which is when identifying or describing your emotions feels like trying to read a book in a language you never learnt.

    Feeling your feelings isn’t indulgent. It’s intelligence. Your emotions carry information about what you care about, what you need, and what might need to change. If you can learn to decode them, they become less overwhelming and more like internal signposts.

    Next, we’ll get into the how. Gently. No complicated journaling prompts or dramatic soul-searching required.

    How Do You Start Feeling Your Feelings?

    So, how do you actually get better at identifying your emotions, especially if they feel like a murky soup instead of anything nameable?

    The first step is: don’t aim for perfection. Aim for curiosity. You don’t need to become a walking feelings encyclopaedia overnight. But you can learn to tune in and get closer to what’s going on inside.

    1. Start by tracking energy and pleasantness

    If naming emotions feels impossible, try this:
    Ask yourself two things: Do I feel high or low energy? And is this sensation pleasant or unpleasant?

    This helps to narrow things down without needing an exact label. From there, you might get closer to something like tired but content, agitated, or flat. These aren’t just labels; they’re doorways.

    This simple approach is used in the free How We Feel app (https://howwefeel.org/), which was created by therapists, scientists, and people who’ve struggled with emotional awareness themselves. It helps you check in using a visual grid and, based on your answers, offers emotion words you might not have considered.

    2. Use a feelings wheel

    You’ve probably seen one floating around online: a colourful chart with basic emotions in the centre (sad, happy, angry) and more specific ones branching out. The feelings wheel helps you move from vague to precise.

    Try starting with something general: “I feel bad.”
    Then use the wheel to go deeper: is it frustrated? Lonely? Overwhelmed?

    You’re not aiming for the “right” answer. You’re aiming to get closer.

    3. Talk out loud (or write it down)

    If your inner world is a mystery, sometimes saying it out loud, even to yourself, helps. Try this:
    “I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I know I’m…” And then fill in the blank with whatever comes. Stuck? Add context. “I just got home, and my chest feels heavy. I think I wanted today to go differently.”

    You can also voice memo yourself or jot notes in your phone. Think of it as gathering clues.

    4. Therapy (yes, obviously)

    Sometimes, the most powerful way to learn how to feel is by being asked gentle questions in a safe space. Not everyone had that growing up. Therapy can offer it now, especially if your go-to response has always been to numb, shut down, or perform instead of feeling.

    Why This Matters (And Isn’t Just Navel-Gazing)

    It’s easy to think emotional awareness is a luxury. Something for people with too much time or too many feelings. But here’s the truth: when you can name what you feel, you’re better able to meet your needs.

    This isn’t about turning yourself into a walking mood board. It’s about understanding why you’re snapping at your partner, why you’re exhausted by 10am, or why you keep saying yes to things that drain you.

    For many of us emotional fluency wasn’t taught. In fact, emotional expression may have been shamed, ignored, or simply… lost in translation. Add to that a culture that rewards pushing through over slowing down, and no wonder so many of us live from the neck up.

    Learning to name your emotions doesn’t fix everything. But it does give you a map and maybe even a way home to yourself.

    And if you’ve tried every journal prompt and mood tracker out there and still feel stuck? That’s okay too. That’s where therapy can help.

    Not because you’re broken but because you were never taught the language of your inner world. And we can learn it together.

    Want support figuring out your emotional landscape?
    I work with people who feel like they’re “too much” or “not enough,” sometimes at the same time. Whether you’re emotionally fluent or still stuck at “I feel meh,” I’d love to help.
    Visit www.trueformtherapy.co.uk to find out more or book a consultation.