Name it. Feel it. Move it. by Shonnie Scott

COVID-19 Liminal Space tip of the week:

“When you name it, you feel it and it moves through you. Emotions need motion. . . . Fighting it doesn’t help because your body is producing the feeling.”1 And your body will continue to produce the feeling, even if you think you’ve successfully buried it. You only buried it alive and it will find a way out.

A few weeks ago we were plunged into a global “liminal space” – that intensely uncomfortable space between an ending (of our normal life as we knew it) and a new beginning (yet to be revealed and we don’t know the timeline).  We are all presently suspended in a “terrible cloud of unknowing” as Richard Rohr calls it.  

We don’t know when we’ll get relief from the circumstances we are stuck in, but we can still experience movement. A small, immediate, opportunity for movement is to simply keep our feelings moving. Don’t resist or suppress the feelings the COVID-19 pandemic is prompting in you, instead consciously name and feel them, as immediately and as often as you can and let them pass through. You will actually feel—in your body—emotional space freed up; you will gain capacity to keep going.  

Exercise: What is your primary fear right now? Put it into words, and share it with someone who will graciously listen without offering advice or attempt to “fix” it. Doing this will rob that fear of much of its power and turn its volume way down.  In your body, you will physically feel a big exhale, and an unexpected peace. I have been doing this daily – I hope you’ll give it a try!

Full article here: That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief
by Scott Berinato