At least a few times a day someone asks me, “What do I do with that?” This question most commonly occurs at a moment when the person has reached some kind of emotional or intellectual insight. For instance, maybe something has happened that brought on the realization that the person has always prioritized others over themselves. Maybe I empathize and say something like a therapist will, “How sad that you never got prioritized.” Almost guaranteed, that is the moment when the person will say, “But what do I do with that?” The answer is, you feel it. Sad, bad, mad, glad, whatever comes up. If you don’t feel anything about it, then you feel that absence of feeling. Action will arise through the feeling, but because feeling can be scary, we often want to skip right to action. The tricky part of this approach is that until our feelings are liberated, all of them, action can be very hard. If it wasn’t, then therapists would be out of a job. So, feeling IS doing. In fact, feeling WITH another person and receiving empathy and comfort is about the most efficient path to changing your action.
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AuthorI am a psychotherapist in private practice in Manhattan and Brooklyn Archives
December 2015
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