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If you’ve been reading my newsletters and poems, you know I love words. I’ve always loved them and been sensitive (surprise, surprise) to how they feel and land since I was a child. Some words cause me to bristle. And one of those words is - compartmentalization. Maybe, it’s because I’ve never been the compartmentalizing type. I’ve always found being organized and staying organized to be hard. Years ago, my husband shared a simple organizational hack: give everything a place. That’s incredibly effective in the outer world. But in the inner world? Not so much. Our feelings aren’t objects. They’re not static. They move and shift. They expand and contract. They can mix with other feelings and form something new— something not yet named, but clearly felt. Feelings don’t like to be compartmentalized. They don’t respond well to being stuffed down or pushed aside. Eventually, they come out. Sometimes subtly— like water finding a thin crack in a wall. Other times, loudly — like a pack of barking dogs. And if you’re already feeling too much, there’s a strong likelihood you’re at capacity. Even if you wanted to compartmentalize, it may simply feel like there’s no room. Every bit of space is taken up and jammed‑packed. In moments like these, it can feel like you’re at the mercy of “too much” — either pushed around by it (rushing, snapping at people, losing patience) or weighed down by it (foggy, heavy, shut down). So, why would I suggest turning toward the very thing that already feels like too much? I’ll let Gene Gendlin, the creator of Focusing and the felt sensing process, answer that question: “What is split off, not felt, remains the same. When it is felt, it changes. Most people don’t know this! They think that by not permitting the feeling of their negative ways they make themselves good. On the contrary, that keeps these negatives static, the same from year to year. A few moments of feeling it in you body allows it to change.”
This is the paradox: what we try to avoid doesn’t disappear — it grows stronger, louder and holds on even tighter, leaving us tired, frustrated, and even more … stuck. Can you relate? But, when we turn towards that uncomfortable feeling and sense it freshly, something new begins to happen. A process gets underway and what we’re feeling starts to shift naturally. No pushing. No forcing. No effort-ing. And by sensing it I don’t mean jumping into the feeling. I mean sitting beside it the way you might sit beside a cat - close enough to feel its warmth and hear its purr. Or standing beside a lake — feeling the water’s edge at the very tip of your toes and no more. By being with the body feel of “too much” in this way, you create the conditions within for tension to ease and space to open up. This is also why honoring your “knowing no” is so important.
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