Five powerful ways to connect to your emotions using your body

These exercises drawn from theater, meditation, and natural movement will connect you to both your body and feelings

Introduction

A few days ago I saw a toddler walk into a café with her Dad and experience the full spectrum of human emotion in under two minutes. She lit up with joy when she saw cupcakes behind the glass and glued her masked face to it; festered with frustration and desire as she pointed to them; stomped in anger when her Dad ignored her and bought his coffee; then giggled when he scooped her up and began to bounce her in his arms. In that short time, that little girl probably felt and expressed more intense emotion than most adults I interact with experience in a month.

As part of growing up, 99% of adults lose, or at least drastically narrow, their ability to feel and express their feelings as clearly as children do. That’s how I lived for most of my 20s, pushing down emotions so I could focus on work and studying. When it finally hit me that my feelings had flatlined and I had lost my excitement about life, I started searching for ways to feel again.

From everything I’ve discovered so far, one thing is apparent: the path to feeling is through the body. Our body is the only instrument we have: the place where emotion is both created and…