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Ask Don: BSFF and Not In Tune With Feelings
Dear Don:
When using BSFF, how do you begin with those people who are not in tune with their feelings?
Don Elium: Many people don't know the difference between how they feel about something and how they think about something. To determine if a client knows the difference, ask, for example, “How did you feel about being treated rudely?” “I feel he shouldn’t have done that,” is a thought about something, not an expression of feeling. A feeling answer would be, “I felt hurt about that.”
People commonly avoid feelings by staying in their heads, believing that by thinking about it, they won’t experience being hurt. In some ways this is true. However, thinking to avoid feeling becomes a habit. Not only will they not feel their hurt, they will eventually have difficulty feeling the fullness of pleasure, joy, and gratitude.
When you are not aware of your feelings, your thinking becomes driven by hidden emotions. When this happens during especially difficult conversations, your thoughts go round and round, creating frustration and drama for those people involved. Everyone else feels and is affected by the hidden feelings, but only you are unaware. Unacknowledged emotional messages are sent. We end up talking about what we believe is going on, but we are out of touch with what is actually happening.
So, how do you deal with this phenomenon in a BSFF session? When a person reports that they never have any feelings, the first step is to ask them to remember the last argument they had with their boss, spouse or their child. Most often they can remember their emotional reaction, which proves that what they think about their experience--that they never have feelings--isn’t accurate. Their belief that they don’t have feelings is over-riding the reality of their experience.
Here is where BSFF can help. You don’t have to have a feeling reaction to change a belief that controls your perception. Your beliefs about how you feel controls your awareness of what you actually allow yourself to feel. Use BSFF to help create the freedom to be aware of feeling that is happening in the body but blocked out of your awareness. Use treatments such as these. Treat them as if these statements are true at the subconscious level. Treat them until the person can easily remember times of emotional intensity. [For the steps to BSFF Click Here]
• I cannot acknowledge my feeling about things. Cue.
• I can’t be aware of my feeling about things. Cue.
• I can’t use my feelings as guides to what is really happening within me in all situations. Cue.
• I can’t be free to express the feelings I want to express. Cue.
• I can’t (or, I don’t dare to) experience pleasurable feelings, but, I will be okay anyway. Cue.
• I can’t experience difficult feelings, but, I will be okay anyway. Cue
And so on . . .
Most people will need to do the BSFF Fail Safe System on these issues, because of the long-term beliefs that are commonly held in place subconsciously, as a way to survive emotionally as a child.
Again, work with these beliefs until the person can remember and acknowledge times when they felt emotional reactions to their experiences, such as divorce, marriage, being judged or criticized, being fired from a job, etc. They don’t have to feel anything yet. This step is to help them become able to acknowledge the very intense emotions they have experienced in the past. Use BSFF until they can easily recall these times of deep emotion. This first step opens one’s awareness of the truth about their feeling experience of the past.
The second step is to help the person become aware of the truth about the feeling experience of the present. Tell the person that thoughts can create feeling responses. Have the person drop their attention from their head down to their chest and belly area. Have them think of something very precious to them--a child, their pet, an important experience. They might say, "Oh, the birth of my first child." Ask them what happens in their chest and belly—heart warm, open, tears, joy.
Whatever they say, call this a "felt response." The idea about their first child being born created a "felt response" in their chest and belly area. Emotions happen when the mind interacts with the physical body. So use this human certainty to assist a person in knowing where to find their emotion. Not up in their head. It will be somewhere below their nose.
Now, if they say, "I think of that and nothing happens in my chest and belly area," try this next step. Bring their attention to their chest and belly area. Tell them to notice the response in this area when you say the following statement, "The birth of my first child is not important to me at all. In fact, I can't even remember what it felt like. I don’t even like any of my children." Ask them what happened in their chest and belly area. The response will probably be a felt “No.” If you reverse the meaning of whatever precious thing or memory they present, in this case the birth of a first child, their "felt response" will most likely be strong, and this is the doorway to their awareness of their direct experience of their feelings. [For the steps to BSFF Click Here]
Use BSFF to treat subconscious beliefs like the following:
• I cannot be aware of my body’s felt reactions to the thoughts I have. Cue.
• I don’t want to know how I really feel about things. Cues.
• I can’t directly experience how I feel about all things in my life and be okay. Cue.
• I can’t use my feelings to help guide me to what means most to me. Cue.
And so on…
Remember to keep their attention below the nose and to use BSFF to open the door to a direct experience of their emotional reality. The thought of “no” is far different than the feeling of “no.” Remind them that when they are 
afraid, angry, sad, or hurt, the people around them know that they are experiencing strong feelings, because we all send emotional messages whether we are aware of it or not.
Here BSFF is being used to give one the freedom to directly know how they feel about their self, life, partners, and the world around. Since meaning comes from the feelings of life, this opens one to feeling more alive and purposeful in each and every moment.
In the next BSFF Newsletter I will discuss how to use beliefs to change emotional responses to frustrating situations.
Please let me know how it goes!
Copyright 2008, Don Elium, Walnut Creek, CA, USA. All rights reserved.
