Deconstructing the feeling of feelings

What is ours and what is not....

I am feeling restless as I write this, unable to shift a cloak of irritation that is sitting like fog on my mood. I'm irritated that my husband was away all week and then fell asleep early last night (with his earplugs firmly in place, a habit I find ironic in a not-funny way given that he is the snorer in the bed) when both our teenagers were yet to be home. I am not enjoying the sleeping habits of this teenage phase. As someone who finds the hours before midnight invaluable in terms of sleep quality, but who is unable to drop off until both children are safely back in the house and vaguely on their way to bed themselves, preferably without a screen in their rooms, weekends especially are proving very disruptive to my slumber and my consequent mood.

I am also feeling a bit disgruntled by the fact that my family are not mind-reading empaths. Sometimes I am very grateful for the space that this affords, but at this particular time of the month I am feeling low and a bit ick and wishing that sometimes one of them (sister, mother or father) would pick up the phone, just to check in and know - without having to probe - that I am in need of some compassion and reassurance. Sadly though, we aren’t really that kind of a family, and normally that is ok, just not today. I know from conversations with friends, patients and colleagues that no one has a perfect family, and there are many things that my family is not, for which I am very grateful, but when I am feeling sorry for myself, it is so much easier to focus on the negatives.

Another reason for this funk, most likely, is hormonal, and the fact that I am in a post-ovulatory, luteal phase oestrogen crash. I have always been prone to gloomy dips in my mood, something that was multiplied a million-fold by going on the contraceptive pill in my late teens. There ensued years of disordered eating, panic attacks, self-doubt and crushingly low self-esteem that I have only pieced together in my wiser and later years as inextricably linked to the rollercoaster of synthetic hormones that I was naively swallowing every morning, thinking nothing of other than a vague gratitude that I could be sexually active and not really worry about pregnancy.

So I am sitting here with these uncomfortable feelings and my sensitivity to oestrogen and what makes it all even more upsetting is that really the only person who can change it is me. As much as my ego would like to apportion blame outside of myself, I am the one feeling the anger, and the irritation and the frustration. It’s not really coming from my husband’s superior night of sleep. I am also the one choosing to be offended on this particular day by my family’s lack of contact - that is nothing new, so why is it so particularly upsetting today? And while I can cut myself some slack and acknowledge that the current composition of the neuro-chemicals in my blood may well be predisposing me to sadness and irritation and gloom, it is still really up to me to do something about it. But what?

In Chinese medicine, emotions (when unregulated or unprocessed) are very much seen as a key cause of pathology, as much as bad diet, poor clothing choices or imbibed toxins. There is a whole chunk of theory dedicated to explaining how unresolved emotional debris (and/or trauma) which is stored in our blood, accumulates in our body affecting our physiology and causing various kinds of illness. CM equates our blood with our consciousness (that’s why bloodless hair and nails don’t hurt to cut). It is the medium which allows us to feel, and carries the imprints of emotional experiences throughout our bodies. Moreover, when those emotional experiences are too much to bear, or the situations where they occur do not allow for full processing of the feelings in that moment (no one wants to cry in the office for example), our circulatory system of blood and channels and their tributaries provide their own version of mini reservoirs where that emotion can be stored away out of awareness. Young kids don’t have this ability yet – hence every upset comes with its own little emotional tsunami (or ‘tantrum’), but as we become socialised and aware that certain feelings and expressions are not allowed or tolerated or welcome, we get better and better at stashing them away, and our growing bodies provide the anatomical cupboards for those emotional skeletons.

Furthermore, the women among us have a monthly cycle of storing and releasing blood which goes some way to explaining why, as a general rule (to which of course there are exceptions) we tend to express more emotionality than men. Not only do we bank blood throughout the first 23ish days of our cycle, holding all that emotional imprinting inside and gradually increasing our blood pressure, but then we lose the majority of it within the first 48 hours of menstruation. This process brings with it for many a significantly increased intensity and fluctuation of mood than the other days of the month as that movement of the blood brings certain feelings back into consciousness (or so CM would assert). Looking at it this way, we can have a lot more compassion for what typically has been derided as ‘women’s problems’, which as far back as ancient Greece where the word hysteria derives, associated extreme emotion behaviour with issues of the womb.

As humans we tend to favour distraction over unpleasant feelings, and in this technical age our options are ubiquitous, countless and mostly accessible at the tap of a touch-screen (pick your poison – food, alcohol, porn, TikTok, drugs etc). And the more we engage in this distraction from and repression of the difficult feelings, the more disconnected we become from ourselves and the harder it is to change our habits and start the kind of self-exploration that will actually engender change and even ‘healing’.

Everywhere you look we are being told the benefits of mindfulness and stillness and meditation, as the increasing pace and stimulation in our lives leaves us needing instruction on how to just Be (still and introspective). Iain McGilchrist is someone who has written extensively about the brain hemisphere function and the history of ideas and highlighted the dominance of left brain (detail oriented and analytical) thinking in the Western world – as evidenced by the rise in technology and materialism. He argues that in under-valuing the input of right hemispheric input we lack the intuition and holism that its perspective affords. Another cultural hurdle that hampers our ability to self-reflect.

The Eastern philosophies have long emphasised the importance of introspection and sensing over doing, and asserted that the real and valuable work is in turning inwards, taking responsibility for the feelings you have as ‘in you’ not ‘because of someone or something else’ and recognising that they are transient states so that they don’t become permanent perspectives. Acupuncture is incredibly effective at bringing people out of their minds and back into their bodies (a sharp piece of metal tends to get people’s attention) and there is also a technique of bleeding visible blood capillaries as a release valve for an over-pressured system which can provide great relief from overwhelming emotions (something intuitively understood by those who self harm – bleeding themselves to ease the suffering). Increasingly the benefits of somatic work to alleviate the burden of trauma is being recognised in addition to the more traditional talking therapies, and we see the growing popularity of breathwork and more esoteric practices (such as ‘kundalini’ activation and spinal energetics) which have varying techniques to bypass the thinking mind and activate the feeling body.  

Whether or not these practices appeal, the simple act of paying attention to where the sensations arise in your body, gently asking yourself “what exactly is it that I need right now?” and getting used to tuning in instead of out (whether you want to call that meditation or not) can be very useful in terms of understanding yourself and your emotional world. I recently was introduced by a patient to a wonderfully simple but effective mindfulness technique called Kelee meditation, which encourages two short 5 minute practices a day, followed by a brief journalling of each experience. The brevity of the technique makes it hard to find excuses not to do it, and regular practice over the last few months has afforded me better sleep and mood regulation and meant that days like today don’t derail me quite as intensely, or end up in my taking those feelings out on my family as I am able to identify my state and better deal with what it entails.

For me, this seems to be one of the prime objectives of being human. As someone who has chosen a path of a practitioner, trying to be of use to others in some way, I am really, ultimately, just trying to help and to understand myself. But we are not isolated beings. The more I tune in, the more I realise we are deeply connected with the people and animals and plants that surround us, affecting them as much as they affect us. And this is the Chinese medical model - we are a mini microcosmic representation of the wider natural world/universe that surrounds us. Our heads reaching up to heaven, our feet planted firmly on the ground below, and everything in between trying to make sense of it all.