Feelings in my body.
- joneworlds@mailbox.org

And they say it is  good to know how your feelings
show up physically in  your own body.  That you'll
get the physical part of a feeling first, and then
you can  stop and  note that,  and process  it.  I
think  they   teach  this  even  to   little  kids
nowadays.  I see it in their books and I read with
fascination, for  I never  learned how to  do that
myself.   But I  am learning  now.  It's  like I'm
someone finally learning to read and write for the
first time in their  middle age.  Better late than
never, I guess.

It's  hard to  notice  these  things, when  you've
never tried before.  They say that doing some deep
breathing and focusing on  that will help you feel
your body, as it somehow  helps get your brain out
of the  way.  And that everybody's  sensations are
different.  These are mine:


Fear - In my windpipe, high  in my chest or in the
back of my throat, a feeling like it is closing,
like  I  cannot  breathe.  Or  sometimes,  like  a
pressure or  weight on my  rib cage, and  it seems
hard  to  take a  full  breath.   A shaky  quavery
feeling  through  my  chest   might  go  with  the
tightness through there.

Anger - In my mouth and jaw.  Clenched teeth, lips
narrow and pressed together.  In my nose, nostrils
flaring.  My heart beats  faster.  Sometimes in my
hands, clenched.   A tension  in my face  above my
cheekbones, right underneath my eyes.

Gladness - A loose and tingling feeling in my back
and  shoulders,   and  the   sides  of   my  neck.
Sometimes a similar feeling in my lower legs.

Sadness - An ache in  my heart, often on the lower
part  of  it,  like  something  gripping  it  from
underneath.   Or   sometimes  it  feels   like  an
oval-shaped dome  over top of it.   A heaviness in
my face, in my cheeks lower down towards my mouth.
Some  tension  in the  corner  of  my eyes.   Also
sometimes  there  is  something  behind  my  face,
behind my eyes.

Shame/guilt - It's like  a rough green spiked ball
that moves inside my chest, pushing intermittently
on the side of my heart just aside my sternum.