Feeling Is Not Thinking: A Love Letter to Embodied Emotion

For many of us wounded, sensitive humans, we pat ourselves on the back for understanding our emotions when we’re actually just thinking about them (lol). We get good—so good—at analyzing, narrating, and dissecting. But the emotions themselves? Still hostage in the body. Untouched. Unfelt.

Ever wonder what it would be like to pause the story and let the feeling move through instead? Let’s dive in and nurture the much-needed revolution of not explaining ourselves. Rather, let’s feel and live together.

I wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t lived it. I’ve been the Queen of Dissociation and longtime ruler of the intellectual realms of emotional dialogue—been there, done that, built a castle with the shrine. And while I still visit sometimes, I don’t live there anymore. These days, awareness and felt-sense have me paying rent in a different place of the body (hint: mostly below the neck).

Over time, I learned that “processing” through thinking can become a beautifully disguised illusion. Don’t get me wrong—therapy is necessary and foundational. It helps us create understanding, language, safety. But let’s be real: it’s also easy to fall into the trap of believing we’re healing just because we’re talking about it. Especially if we’re high-functioning, self-aware, and love a good deep-dive. (Hi, hello, recovering over-processor here! 👋🏼)

Here’s what I’ve come to believe: the body is the home of emotional truth. Emotions are deeply intelligent—and mostly orchestrated by the hypothalamus, which kicks off a cascade through the HPA-axis and hormonal messengers. This may show up as tightness, heat, fluttering, numbness, or heaviness. And even when these sensations arise, many of us either don’t notice them or don’t know what to do with them.

But true integration—true transformation—happens when the body gets to complete the experience. That might happen in the moment, or days, weeks, even years later. Everyone’s timeline is different. Everyone’s access to safety and capacity is different. And that’s okay.

A dear mentor of mine often says, “Feeling is scary.” And yeah, it is. I know this in my bones. I’ve hurt and been hurt in the name of avoiding feeling. Why is it so scary? Likely because many of us weren’t taught how to feel. Or worse, we were punished for doing so. Maybe we were told to stop crying, or shamed, or even harmed when our little bodies tried to move big emotions.

As adults, we may fear that if we feel, we’ll unravel. But that fear is often the residue of not having had the tools—or the co-regulation—we needed. Feeling isn’t the problem. Feeling alone with no map and no support is. And actual feeling is unknown territory (shivers).

Let’s also talk about the illusion of “processing” that’s actually just intellectualizing discomfort. Ever had someone say they’re just “processing their feelings” while really just obsessively venting or spiraling? Same. It happens all the time. But true emotional processing? It’s not always pretty or poetic. It’s ugly crying. It’s shaking. It’s moaning, melting, breathing, trembling, placing your hand over your chest or belly and just being there. It’s trusting the body to do what the body was designed to do.

At this point in humanity, we’ve become so fluent in intellect, we’ve mistaken it for emotion. Kinda wild, right?

But here’s the truth: if we don’t begin to sit with ourselves (probably the hardest and most sacred ceremony of being alive), we will miss the full spectrum of being human. In order to live and be embodied, we must feel.

When I drop into myself, I drop into my center—the deep belly space. I ask: What’s here, beneath the words? And sometimes, the answer is silence. No storyline. No analysis. Just sensation. Just presence. And I let that be enough. It takes time, space, and often support to re-learn that feeling is not dangerous. That our bodies are wise and trustworthy homes. That they are built to hold it all.