The Importance of Feeling

We must allow ourselves to feel. Often times, when in the midst of a breakup or divorce, we do not take the time to feel our feelings. That’s because when you experience trauma, you are often in survival mode. You’re trying to keep it together for your children and/or other family members. All your energy is focused on getting through the transition. It’s natural not to grieve while in survival mode. It's all a process. That is why it is so important to work the steps of relationship recovery to ensure you deal with your feelings now instead of being forced to deal with them in the future when you are not prepared.

Too many of us, especially men are socialized to believe that we shouldn’t cry or exhibit our emotions in any way, shape or form. We learn to repress our feelings as if they are a sign of insecurity or weakness. In my opinion, this is disastorous to our well-being.

John Lennon’s Primal therapy sessions with Arthur Janov in 1970 were the catalyst in Lennon's most emotionally bare album, "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band". Lennon had this to say about Primal Scream Therapy in the Howard Smith Radio Interview:

There’s no way of describing it, it all sounds so straight just talking about it, what you actually do is cry. Instead of penting up emotion, or pain, feel it rather than putting it away for some rainy day..... I think everybody’s blocked, I haven’t met anybody that isn’t a complete blockage of pain from childhood, from birth on...... It’s like somewhere along the line we were switched off not to feel things, like for instance, crying, men crying and women being very girlish or whatever it is, somewhere you have to switch into a role and this therapy gives you back the switch, locate it and switch back into feeling just as a human being, not as a male or a female or as a famous person or not famous person, they switch you back to being a baby and therefore you feel as a child does, but it’s something we forget because there’s so much pressure and pain and whatever it is that is life, everyday life, that we gradually switch off over the years. All the generation gap crap is that the older people are more dead, as the years go by the pain doesn’t go away, the pain of living, you have to kill yourself to survive. This allows you to live and survive without killing yourself."

Lennon is referring to Primal Scream Therapy, which is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov, who believes neurosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma. Janov argues that unresolved pain can be brought to conscious awareness by re-experiencing painful childhood feelings or events and fully expressing the resulting pain during therapy. Janov believes this type of therapy resolves pain from the past. Primal therapy first became influential in the early 1970s, after the publication of Janov's first book, The Primal Scream.

Janov used Primal Therapy to help patients resolve childhood pain by processing their emotions, integrating them and thus, becoming "real." The goal of his therapy is to lessen or eliminate the hold early trauma exerts on adult life.
As we know, trauma can be experienced at any point in one’s life. It is likely that after being in a relationship with a PDI, you experienced trauma as a result of the emotional abuse typically involved. Emotional abuse is much harder to pinpoint than physical abuse because there are no visible scars. However, trust me when I tell you emotional abuse is just as real as any other type of abuse. The resulting trauma you experienced cannot be ignored. It must be dealt with and processed, which is why Step 1 – Get it Out – is so critical to your recovery.

Janov states that neurosis is the result of suppressed pain which is the result of trauma. According to Janov, the only way to reverse neurosis is for the patient to confront their trauma and express the emotions that occurred at that time.
You must confront the trauma you experienced and process the emotions that are a result of the pain you endured. We cannot repress our feelings and we must confront what happened to us. If we do not, we will remain stuck in a state of pain.

I spent many years in this state, which I refer to as my “dark period.” Eckhart Tolle refers to this state of being as the “pain body.” In his groundbreaking book, The Power of Now, he explains how the pain body is actually afraid of the light of consciousness. Its survival is dependent on your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you.

In other words, you will remain in a state of pain, darkness or unhappiness as long as you continue to lie to yourself and deny your reality. Resistance is what keeps us stuck in the unconscious realm. Tolle believes the more you resist the present moment, the more pain you create within yourself.

The whole idea of Zen is to be so utterly and completely present in the now that no suffering can survive within you. Buddha defines enlightenment as the “end of suffering.”

In my opinion, the only true path to enlightenment is to drop all inner resistance and be honest with ourselves. We must allow ourselves to feel our feelings and not be ashamed.

The music group Tears for Fears got their very name from Arthur Janov's Primal Scream Therapy, which is evident in much of their earlier work (i.e. The Hurting and Shout).

SHOUT
Songwriters: Stanley;Orzabal

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on

In violent times
You shouldn't have to sell your soul
In black and white
They really really ought to know

Those one track minds
They took you for a working boy
Kiss them goodbye, you shouldn't have to jump for joy
You shouldn't have to jump for joy

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on

They gave you life
And in return you gave them Hell
As cold as ice, I hope we live to tell the tale
I hope we live to tell the tale

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on

And when you've taken down your guard
If I could change your mind
I'd really love to break your heart
I'd really love to break your heart

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on