Feeling v Reacting
Sometimes we are so immersed in being angry or frantic or upset that we think that is us feeling our feelings. What we are doing when we feel that way is that we are either reacting to the deep feelings coming up within us or we are experiencing deep feelings without words so that we have no way to categorize or to understand the deep things coming up inside of us. Either way, experiencing such terrible feelings or reactions can be no fun and very disturbing. I have a patient who experiences this phenomenon frequently. Suddenly she becomes terribly frantic and upset. Often in those times she is unable to be the detective and to figure out what set her off. Sometimes it just takes lots of stuff to do or something she read and she is off and running, with no off button in sight. One day in the recent past this occurred again. She phoned me in a state of panic. She asked me if I was trying to rub salt in her wound by writing what I did as an affirmation for her. No, I was not