Feeling emotions in the body: anger, love, pain, hatred
Emotions are completely natural for us and are part of normal and healthy human functioning. Sometimes these emotions make us feel more complete. They help us recognize the things that are important in life, connect us to beauty and justice, help us connect with people, animals and nature, support our creativity and are the fullest expression of our human self. Even when they are painful, they connect us to our human dignity and give us strength.
At other times, emotions, especially those that manifest themselves intensely, that continue, do not seem so useful. They have to do with things that seem important, but in reality, they keep us stuck, and life can’t function well, and they don’t give us any strength or hope.
Strong experiences, such as anger , are explained in the family constellation method by an early movement towards the parents, which was interrupted and the child could not move on. This anger protects the child from the pain of the lack of love he felt. She can be understood as the other face of love. Encouraging the expression of this anger would do nothing but recreate what happened in the past, and the movement towards the parent is still interrupted. Letting this anger surface, the experience is repeated, but not resolved.
This anger creates the illusion of being above their parent, but in fact, children punish themselves for these emotions. Expressing this anger is a defense mechanism. If the person is not allowed to express his anger, then he becomes able to come into contact with what is beyond him, i.e. love and pain.
The emotions of love and pain go together. Love is much more painful than anger; it is the most painful of all, because it is felt along with the feeling of total helplessness.
When I express my anger, I deny my helplessness. I am not aware of it. The healing phrase that must be said at these moments is: “please”, “daddy, please”, “mummy, please”. These words hide great pain, but also strength behind them, compared to an outburst of anger.
If we refer to the emotion of hatred – this connects the victim to the aggressor. The victim frees himself from the aggressor, when he withdraws and gives the aggressor responsibility for his actions, this is also a form of respect. Withdrawing from the aggressor and his deed gives strength and thus the person becomes able to act. Those victims who remain indignant and persecuted in turn become aggressors, and their fantasies of punishment and revenge are sometimes worse than the aggressor’s act.
The emotional world of a differentiated person is rich in bodily sensations and comes along with the ability to feel and understand the emotions felt in his body. The body is the space where emotions are experienced. They are experienced throughout the body, but there are a number of areas where certain types of emotions are felt the strongest. Thus, in the region of the pelvis and lower abdomen, one can feel fear, on the one hand, but also security, on the other hand. In the area of the chest and neck, you can feel sadness, pain, but also love. When we do the work of differentiation, the feeling of our feelings becomes purer and clearer. Our body becomes an accurate tool to know our feelings, but also those of other people. When we clean our emotional system, that is, we stop expressing secondary emotions (used as defense mechanisms against primary emotions, which are too painful) and refuse to assume systemic emotions (which belong to other members of the family system), our ability to feels and understands his own feelings, but also the emotions of others, becomes more precise and refined. Instead of automatically reacting to the feelings, emotional needs and projections of those around, the differentiated person is able to feel them, without reacting to them, and through them to understand himself and others.
Emotion is felt in the body, and understanding is done through thinking. The answer is made from choice associated with attention, integrity and consciousness. It is necessary to encourage these skills, by:
– stopping the expression of secondary emotions;
– clarification regarding the feelings that truly belong to the person, by refusing to assume and express emotions that do not belong to him;
– the practice of connecting with the body and listening to messages and one’s own intuition.
The method of family constellations supports the path to the expression of primary emotions. This helps us integrate traumatic experiences, which cease to be repeated, through the endless expression of secondary emotions. A healthy expression of primary emotions strengthens us and gives us a sense of dignity and autonomy and attracts the empathy and support of others, as we heal.
In interpersonal conflict, if the people involved can reach their primary feelings, resolution becomes possible. The moment we start dealing with primary movements, something can move in the system and important things, which had been hidden, can now be revealed and included. Thus it becomes possible to end the traumas, and the great ancestral suffering can occupy a place in the past, rather than repeating itself in the present.
