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Emotions are felt in the body. Researchers have mapped the places where most people feel particular emotions. Some of the places where the most common emotions are felt are shown in the graphic below.

People differ in the extent to which they can locate their emotions within their own bodies. Some people spend a lot of their lives ‘in their heads’ - experiencing life as largely a matter of their thoughts about things. An exercise called the Body Scan is a method where you systematically move through your body focusing your attention on different areas. It can potentially help you get more in touch with where your emotions are located.

A number of therapies focus on getting you to experience your emotions and accept them rather than trying to run away from them. The Accept Your Feelings Tool can be used to do this as part of developing a mindfulness meditation practice. It is a process by which you locate where you are experiencing emotions within your body and then focus your attention right into the bodily experience of that emotion. (Please note that if you find that the emotions are overwhelming when you try to do this then you should talk to a health professional).

When you do this you, two things can happen. Firstly, you can find that the intensity of the emotion or emotions may reduce over time. This is because, at the end of the day, emotions are just electro-chemical reactions that are taking place within your body. On the other hand, what can happen, if you attempt to run away from experiencing particular emotions, is that experiencing them can end up seeming more scary than the actual reality of just letting them be there. Secondly, even if they do not diminish much, you can train yourself to become more used to experiencing your emotion(s) without panicking at the fact that you are having them. Sometimes this is described as expanding the ‘container’ in which you are experiencing your emotions.

Please note that when you are dealing with issues around child rearing, relationships, dealing with stress of any type or doing psychological or self-development work, if you find yourself feeling overwhelming emotions, troubling thoughts or actions, you need to talk to a health professional.