One of the things which happens every time I teach an NLP
training is my senses are tuned up to a higher level and I begin
noticing things that I wouldn't normally notice in my day to
day life.

While leading the NLP practitioner training in London a few
weeks back, I became particularly aware of the number of times
that people attempted to describe their feelings in terms of
pictures, metaphors or internal dialogue instead of actual
physical sensations.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, it does tend
to keep people dissociated from what it really feels like to be
in your body. And while that means you might be able to take
the edge off some of your less comfortable feelings, it means
the edge is being continually taken off your most wonderful
feelings as well.

So before we go any further, answer this question:

*How do you feel, right now?*

If you like, you can write down your answer on a piece of paper
before reading on. If not, just notice that there are quite a
few different ways to answer, and most of them take you away
from simply feeling whatever is going on in your body, right
now.

Here are some of the most common types of answer to the
question:

1. Judgements and Comparisons

Whether you think you feel 'good', 'bad', 'comfortable',
'uncomfortable', 'horrible' or 'fantastic', you actually feel
none of those things - you simply feel how you feel and then
weigh up your feeling upon a mental scale of possibilities.

Similarly, if you say you feel 'better' or 'worse', you are
pushing away your current feeling in order to better compare it
with a different feeling - and researchers have now shown how
completely unreliable those emotional comparisons can be.

2. Analogies

Another way of answering the question 'how do you feel?' is in
terms of an analogy - 'like an elephant is sitting on my chest',
'like the cat that got the cream', or even 'I feel like sh%t!'

In order to describe your feelings in this way, you have to
actually make a comparison to something else, and in order to do
that chances are you are listening to an inner voice telling
you about it or seeing an inner picture. Remember, this is not
a bad thing - it's just not the same as feeling what you are
feeling in your body.

3. Neutralizers

In the remake of the movie 'The Italian Job', Donald Sutherland
asks Mark Wahlberg's character how he feels.

'I'm fine', says Wahlberg.

'You know what 'fine' means don't you?' replies Sutherland.
'Fu**ed up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.'

'Neutralizers' like "fine", "OK", and "not bad" are all ways of
keeping our feelings at a distance - which is not a bad thing
to do unless you want to actually feel joyful, alive and filled
with energy!

4. Emotions

An emotion is not a feeling - it's a generalized description of
a set of sensations. And while answering the question 'how do
you feel?' with an emotional description (i.e. "I feel happy" or
"I feel sad") is a step closer to your actual feelings than any
of our previous options, it is based on an incomplete
perception of what it is going on in your body. While one set
of feelings may be in the foreground of your perception, its
opposite will always be somewhere in the background. (See
today's experiment for a fun experience of this phenomenon.)

So what is a feeling?

It is simply an internal sensation, like 'warm', 'tingly',
'cool', 'tight', or 'loose'. You may feel one thing in one part
of your body and something completely different in another,
though we are often only aware of one dominant sensation in any
given moment.

Your ability to perceive these inner sensations is called
'proprioception', which literally translated means 'one's own
perception'.

While you may prefer certain feelings to others, there is no
inherent good, bad, right or wrong to what you're feeling - and
more importantly, there is no need for any external explanation
of why you feel it.

Because the wonderful thing about feelings is that they're just
feelings. You don't need to do anything about them, although
you can. But every time you take the time to really feel what
you're feeling, you get to feel more alive as well.

And even though 'alive' isn't a feeling, it sure feels
wonderful, doesn't it?

--------------------
Today's Experiment:
--------------------

(Today's experiment is based on the work of Hale Dwoskin,
creator of 'Holistic Releasing')

1. Tune into your body, right now. Ask yourself "What am I
feeling, right now?"

2. Notice there are many sensations going on simultaneously.
Speak four or five of those sensations aloud along with where in
your body you are feeling them.

For example:

"I feel a cool tickly feeling behind my eyes; I feel a sharp,
tight tingling feeling in my nose; I feel a heavy sensation in
the back of my neck; etc."

3. Now, notice how completely opposite feelings and emotions can
be present at exactly the same time.

Ask yourself the following questions as many times as you like:

a. Could I let myself feel as
(feeling/emotion/judgement/comparison) as I do?

b. Could I let myself feel as (opposite
feeling/emotion/judgement/comparison) as I do?

Here are some pairs of opposites which are fun to explore:

*warm/cool
*happy/sad
*comfortable/uncomfortable
*good/bad

You may notice that after only a few repetitions, the feelings
begin to shift or even dissolve into one another.

Have fun, learn heaps, and happy exploring!