Noticing Bodily Sensations

[Data]

I see a counsellor for sensorimotor psychotherapy, and one of the things she is really into is 'noticing' things in yourself. When I describe what is going through my head, she tends to ask how I am feeling in my body, what physical sensations I notice and where. I find this quite difficult and in general I can't describe any physical sensations, its all in my head. For example, for me to notice physical symptoms of anxiety such as a tremor or tight muscles, it would have to be severe (which is thankfully rare with me nowadays).

She often does this retrospectively as well. If I say to her "I was angry on Monday and I went out for a bottle of wine", and she might say to me "can you put yourself in that place now?" and usually I can't. Once the moment has gone, it has gone.

I wonder if something she said to me the last session has something to do with this: she said I am very logical when I am talking about myself, and not very emotive. She said she wondered if it was a defence mechanism, if I talk too much about my emotions it might be difficult for me.

[Lily-Bee]

Interesting.

I think the thing about this is,being able to spot emotions in your body helps you to recognise when things are arising in you and then deal with it instead of marching on ignoring what your body is telling you about your needs. Could be you learned to ignore it because it can be painful and sometimes in survivalmode its better to not pay attention to it and just get on with it.

An exercize;

Every now and then "scan" your body,start with your head and go down. Ill do it now;

Well my eyes feel blurry and heavy,bit foggy in my head,yawny,tired,Im hungry also etc

If you do practice youll get better at it. Recognizing emotions is the first step to dealing with them in healthy ways.

[Data]

I'll give that a go tomorrow when I am sober, Lily .

One little thing.... I can recognise emotions - I know when I am angry or stressed - its just I don't physically feel anything in my body, its all in my head.

[Villan]

noticing "where" in my body i felt emotions was instrumental in working out what emotions i was actually feeling

my T also always asked where in the body i felt it physically and what exactly did i feel... i found it to be a very helpful thing to do...

it does take time to perfect, especially when the emotion is extreme cos stepping back and asking yourself the question isn't automatic and not easy...

she also used to ask me to go back to a time and see if i could recreate the feeling and describe it physically etc, i found that very tough too initially, but i managed it sometimes and it did help...

stick with it though if you can cos it is a very useful tool if you can master it :)

[carlylight1]

being logical with how you talk about your problems does sound like it could be a defense mechanism. i find a lot of frustration happens when i can reason something out intellectually of what i should/shouldn't do but then the frustration comes when my emotions won't 'let' me do what i can rationally see as right. i guess problems have to be solved on an emotional level too and personally i find that much, much harder.

as for bodily sensations i'm the opposite so can't offer much advice. my body and nerve endings usually feel like thay are on fire with even the slightest of emotions. hate it and really struggle with how unpleasant it is.

[Data]

I can understand that must be difficult for you vivien .

Thanks Villain - I will stick with it .