From the author: the article was published on my website: Working with emotionally dependent clients, I almost always encounter their insensitivity to themselves, to their body, to their feelings. One client asked: “Why should I feel this way? The problem is not with me, but with him. It was he who abandoned me, betrayed me, so he may feel remorse, but I don’t feel anything.” And another woman said this, missing the children who went on vacation to their grandmother: “I’m all there, with them, I’m there.” okay, but why should I feel like myself now?” I would like to note that both women are far from themselves in their thoughts. They really don’t feel themselves, or rather, they don’t want to feel. After all, having returned to themselves, to their state, they will again experience melancholy and sadness. So why should we worry, feel what is happening to us even when it hurts? What are feelings? Feelings are a form of a person’s reflection of reality, summarizing his emotional response and concepts. The word feeling is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic, where it had the spelling chuvstvo and was formed from the word chuti, which is found in the meaning of listen, smell, understand, feel. It turns out that the concept - to feel oneself, means - to understand oneself. Feelings are the relation of the subject to the object . That is, the emotional processes described by the concept of “feeling” are tied to objects: they arise in relation to someone or something, and not to the situation as a whole. “I’m angry at this person” is a feeling, and “I’m scared” is an emotion. In this regard, feelings, unlike emotions and moods, can be ambivalent. This is when one object simultaneously evokes in a person a complex range of feelings, often opposite in meaning. For example: “I love and hate this person at the same time.” It is no coincidence that there is such an expression: from love to hate - one step. Feelings are experiences of attitudes towards needs, and the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of these needs causes positive or negative emotions. So - joy, love, pleasure tell us that our urgent need has been satisfied. And anger, shame, resentment - tell us, on the contrary, that our needs are unsatisfied. Reasons for insensitivity to ourselves. So why do many people say that they don’t feel anything? This may mean that all their thoughts and actions are directed not at themselves, but at another person. They know well what he needs, what needs HE experiences. They live by it and for its sake. And if suddenly the relationship with a partner breaks down, then this person experiences the most difficult experiences. It’s as if he finds himself in a vacuum where he has no place. She doesn’t feel herself, but he’s no longer around. This creates an emptiness that many fear. Often feelings bring pain and suffering, and then a person tries to avoid the consequences of these unpleasant experiences. Builds defenses, freezes and anesthetizes itself. And then he really stops feeling anything for a while. But this is temporary self-help and it is not effective. It’s like if a wound on the body is not treated, but the body is anesthetized. At first it doesn’t hurt, but soon the pain makes itself felt again and then you need more and more painkillers, but the wound still won’t heal. Pain lets us know to what extent this wound is dangerous. Either it is enough to anoint it with brilliant green, or it needs an urgent operation and cannot be done without outside help. It was not for nothing that I gave the example of a wound on the body. Scientists have discovered that the brain does not separate pain into physical and mental (psychological). So a person suffers equally from physical pain and mental pain. Emotional states such as fear, self-doubt, self-worth doubts, sadness and a feeling of loneliness do not imply that we should blindly follow their impulse. These states alert us by drawing our attention to something. Let us know how he is feeling. If, for example, a person feels lonely, then it may be necessary to look to see if he is isolating himself from the outside world, having experienced betrayal or a bad experiencerelationships? Or, there is no strength, nothing makes you happy, then maybe the person is physically exhausted and has run out of resources? The meaning of these feelings is to stimulate us to “explore” them, to look for the reasons for their occurrence in order to understand them. Consequences of insensitivity to ourselves :Those who avoid themselves often live in fantasies rather than living life in the present. This is dangerous because life becomes boring, ordinary, reality ceases to exist. This also leads to ignoring one’s body: moving little, eating poorly, drinking alcohol and smoking, often using drugs, and sleeping little. And gradually the unnoticed and ignored body becomes depleted, malfunctions and psychosomatic disorders appear. Due to prolonged ignoring of feelings, their strength (power) can become unlimited. In this case, feelings again need to be isolated and protected from them, the more we ignore them and the less we understand them. It is also important to be able to distance ourselves from our feelings, because our life will “break up” if we recklessly succumb to our bad mood and anger and aggression, every disappointment, sadness. The ability to distance ourselves from them will save us from excessive self-examination in the past or will not allow us to pathologically “revel” in mental pain. There is also a dangerous point in the fact that we need to not only determine the attitude towards feelings, be able to distance ourselves from feelings in time, but also try to integrate this process. Otherwise, you can “choke in your affects, impulses and moods. How to feel yourself again? So, I told you what feelings are. That we need feelings in order to understand ourselves, our desires and needs. To stay healthy both physically and spiritually. So how can we find ourselves again? Let’s begin to feel ourselves physically, because the body is a container of feelings and sensations. It is also a boundary separating us from the environment. Very often the human body is not recognized as our “I” and most often we feel ourselves living in the body or having nothing to do with our physical state at all. Sit comfortably on a chair. Feel the security of your position: make sure that your buttocks are comfortably located on the chair, and that your spine is securely supported by the back of the chair. Tapping. Start by lightly tapping the fingertips of your right hand on your left palm. Repeat this action until you realize that this palm is really yours. Then, for some time, try to study the sensations in your palm. What do you feel? Mild tingling, vibration, numbness or warmth, cold? Now look at your hand and say out loud: “This is my hand, my hand is a part of me.” (You can say any words that suit you to express the idea that you own any part of your body and each part of your body is an integral part of a single whole) Then continue to examine your entire body, tapping its parts one by one: hands, forearms, shoulders, feet, legs, thighs, stomach, chest, sides, buttocks, back, neck, face and head. Devote enough time to this activity. This entire exercise can be completed in about an hour. The most important thing about this exercise is that in this way you develop the ability to control yourself and lift the veil of insensitivity to yourself. After completing this exercise, a more conscious sense of yourself may return to you, and with it and feelings of helplessness and uncertainty. In order to feel the “soil under your feet, I offer you one more exercise. Grounding exercise. To begin, stand up and simply feel that your feet are firmly on the ground or floor (no matter how far you are from the surface of the earth at this moment, even the 22nd floor is not an obstacle to performing the exercise) Then slowly sway - first from side to side side, then back and forth. The whole body should remain straight, only the legs from the ankle area are movable. It reminds me of swaying