The Feeling Blocks were born out of a sense of responsibility to do my best for my children. When I was a growing up, I was not taught at home, school, or even college, how to identify and articulate how I felt. Looking back, I remember feeling scared, unsure, insecure and alone, most of the time. I did not possess the knowledge, vocabulary, know how or guidance to explore my feelings. I ignored, stuffed and buried my feelings. This behavior caused a multitude of personal dysfunctions. I created the Feeling Blocks to help my children become empowered and give them a better life foundation to build on. By exposing them to a feeling vocabulary they were able to take the emotional fear out of the body to be examined, communicated and ultimately replaced with love based feelings.
Daytona, 6 years old and Delaney, 4 at the time, (now 33 and 31) chose the feelings that they felt each day along with associated colors, for the initial “face” block. My goal was for them to understand that feelings are valid as a barometer to self-understanding and no matter how they felt, they were always loved. I wanted to impress upon them that others do not have the power to make us feel any particular way…that our feelings belong to us and that we have the power to change how we feel by simply acknowledging, identifying and articulating our feelings, to make room for the better feeling thought. When feelings are not addressed we begin to build an internal barrier to our own well being and I didn’t want my daughters to experience the pain I did as a child, without an outlet for processing and understanding.
The use of the Feeling Blocks taught my daughters and their friends amazing communication skills as well as teaching them to take responsibility for how they feel at any given moment. They realized they always have choice to always reach for a better feeling. We can decide to be happy. I wanted them to understand, It’s when we feel powerless that we fall victim to our circumstances. Happiness is a choice and they have the power to choose happiness every moment of every day.
It was my daughters and their friends who urged me to get the Feeling Blocks out into the world. A couple years ago the six girls who grew up with the Feeling Blocks got together to tell me how important the Feeling Blocks were to each of their personal development.
