Why you can't just bypass your feelings

Well, you can, but you pay the price. What you don't (or can't because you're too young or don't have the resources) feel catches up with you eventually.

This is actually a good thing, because it makes you take whatever it is that is hurting you, seriously. It makes you take your feelings seriously and what happened to you seriously, no matter what anyone else says. It usually catches up with us in the form of symptoms, whether they be physical, mental or otherwise. These symptoms, frustrating and excruciating as they may be, are the witnesses and testimonies to our hurts.

If you take a look at the majority of theories and treatments for trauma, they have one common theme: and that is to feel, metabolise, digest or experience what has been, or still is, unbearable. It really is quite simple. But not so simple to do. Because one of the things that we are most afraid of is our feelings. And our emotions/feelings are the only way we can digest the unbearable, whatever technique or tool we use. That is how important they are.

When it comes to being specific, there is no greater gift to give ourselves than to be specific about what we feel, and then to feel those emotions. That is how trauma gets digested and becomes experienced instead of remaining unexperienced or frozen. EFT only works when we tune in to how we feel. We can get lost in our stories and beliefs, and while they are important, we can sometimes bypass how we feel in the telling. Nothing has the power to hurt us, unless we feel it is true. And why do we think it is true, because we feel it, inside. That is what we need to connect with and be specific about. Feelings, or more specifically, feeling our feelings is our pathway towards resolving trauma and healing.