Finding Our Voices At "Emerging From Broken"

Blogger and life coach Darlene Quiment, who publishes the blog "Emerging From Broken" invited Finding Our Voices co-founder and blogger Lynn C. Tolson to guest blog on the topic of "feelings." Darlene generously shares provocative posts about the psychological and physical aspects of the path of healing from an abusive childhood. She invited Lynn to write a guest post, and I chose the topic "feelings." Here is the beginning of the post, and you can read it in full by clicking here. Darlene's blog is interactive, with a variety of comments from others on a healing journey. Thus far, "Feelings" has 65 comments. You'll see that "Cr*ppy is NOT a feeling."

In therapy, clients talk about their feelings. Therapists ask, "How are you feeling today?" Conversations with my therapist(s) frequently sounded like this:

“Lynn, what are you feeling?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must be feeling something.”

“No, nothing.”

“Please, tell me what it feels like.”

“I don’t know.”

I shrugged my shoulders, which was not an acceptable answer to the question of “how are you feeling.” How should I know? I had no clue, no compass, and no map to lead me through the hot and sweaty tropical jungle of twisted emotional thorny vines that lay strangled with family secrets and lies.

Contributed by Lynn C. Tolson, author of Beyond the Tears: A True Survivor's Story