We often experience emotion mostly through our thoughts, never tuning into the sensations emotion creates in the body. By thinking about emotion rather than feeling it, our emotional range shrinks over time, leaving us detached from our feelings.
The Emotion Exploration audio activity helps listeners explore the physical sensations that emotion creates. By tracking these sensations, listeners can experience, process, and release their emotions. With regular practice, this leads to a more rewarding relationship with emotion.
The exercise is an ideal accompaniment to any somatic or body-focused therapy, but it can also be used independently with clients who intellectualize or avoid their emotions. By helping clients process emotions at the level of sensation, this exercise can also support the treatment of trauma. Be sure to prepare your clients for the intensity that experiencing their emotions may involve.
Duration: 14-15 minutes
Suggested UsesEducation: Teach clients how to shift from thinking about their emotions to feeling them in their body.
Practice: Invite clients to practice this exercise regularly, optionally pairing it with a log in which they record their experience. With time, clients may be able to implement the exercise without the audio.
Download: You may download a copy of the Emotion Exploration audio exercise in MP3 format to take with you or share with clients so they can practice outside of session.
