The capacity to make appropriate discriminations of bodily emotional states could be developed by various kinds of meditation, body work, the Alexander technique, Tai Chi, yoga, and so on. There are many powerful disciplines available. Students simply have to be introduced to them. With increased awareness of one's own body, one becomes increasingly aware of the living bodies of others, including non-human others such as trees. Being able to feel means being attuned to the world in a way not disclosable by reason alone.
Reason is capable of feats of abstraction which separate the reasoner from the natural world.
Feeling reminds the reasoner that he or she is embodied and thus inextricably related to natural bodily processes. Embodied beings are mortal. Hence, to learn to feel is to learn to be a a mortal. Learning to be mortal may be the crucial step necessary for transforming our currently destructive and domineering attitude toward nature. So long as the ego denies death, it will attempt to dominate nature in the literally mad attempt to turn the mortal into the immortal.