I Thought Explaining My Feelings Was Feeling Them

Inside Nat's Notebook - Real Reflections for Real Change

There was a moment many years ago, sitting in a therapist’s office after burnout had completely flattened me, where my therapist looked at me and said:

“You’re explaining your feelings to me like you would read the ingredients from a cornflakes packet.”

Now listen… I laugh VERY hard at this now 😂

But at the time?

I genuinely did not hear what she meant. Not emotionally. Not deeply. Not in the body. I understood the sentence intellectually. But I didn’t understand the experience she was pointing towards.

Because back then, I could explain myself beautifully.

I could tell you: Why I felt stressed, where it came from, who triggered it, what happened in childhood, what the psychological pattern was, what the logical solution should be.

Honestly, I could have delivered a TED Talk on my emotional state.

Meanwhile, my nervous system was hanging from the ceiling like a startled cat.

And honestly?

This is something I see all the time in the women who sit with me. They can explain everything brilliantly. What triggered them. Why they feel stressed. Why they can’t sleep. Why they keep overthinking. What the pattern is. What’s probably causing it.

But very often, nobody has ever really taught them how to safely sit inside their own experience.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that emotions should be: managed explained analysed minimised organised and rationalised, instead of experienced.

So instead of: “I feel anxious.”

We say: “I’ve got a lot going on at work at the moment.”

Instead of: “I feel overwhelmed.”

We say: “Well obviously, anybody in my position would be stressed.”

Instead of: “I feel sad.”

We say: “I think it’s probably connected to childhood patterns.”

Instead of: “I feel exhausted.”

We say: “I just need to get more organised.”

Do you see it?

The feeling itself quietly disappears. And the mind steps in with commentary, context, explanation and strategy instead.

Almost like we are narrating our own experience rather than actually living inside it.

And listen… that isn’t weakness.

It isn’t failure.

Often, it is protection. Because for many people, feeling deeply did not always feel safe.

Maybe there wasn’t time. Maybe there wasn’t support. Maybe you had to keep functioning. Maybe everyone else needed you. Maybe you became “the capable one.” Maybe emotions felt messy, inconvenient, dramatic, overwhelming, or simply too vulnerable.

So the nervous system adapted. Beautifully, intelligently, protectively.

It said: “Right then. We’ll stay in the head. Much safer up here.”

And to be fair… it probably worked for a long time.

Until the body started speaking louder. Through exhaustion. Through tight shoulders. Through 3am wake ups. Through tears in the shower. Through feeling permanently wired. Through lying in bed absolutely shattered but somehow unable to switch off.

Feelings do not disappear simply because we explain them. The body still carries them.

And what’s fascinating is this:

Learning to FEEL does not make people less thoughtful.

In fact, I often see the opposite.

The women who work with me frequently describe feeling: steadier, clearer, less reactive, and less trapped in mental noise

Not because they stop thinking.

But because their thinking no longer feels like it’s constantly trying to outrun the nervous system.

There’s more space. More grounding. More ease inside themselves.

That’s the bit nobody tells you. Feeling more does not make you unstable. Very often… it’s the beginning of becoming deeply grounded.

And no, this does not mean collapsing dramatically onto the kitchen floor every morning while whispering affirmations at the kettle.

Although if you have done that, no judgement from me 😂

It simply means slowly becoming willing to ask:

“What am I ACTUALLY feeling right now?”

Not the explanation. Not the story. Not the strategy.

The feeling.

And honestly?

That question changes people’s lives.

#RebelMoment

Tonight, when someone asks how you are…pause for one tiny second before answering.

Notice:

Do you respond with a feeling? Or a report?

Stay blessed

LoveLove

Nat x

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