It takes courage to pay attention to our feelings

Feelings are incredibly powerful. They can work for us, and against us.

Think of it like; thoughts are the language of the mind, and emotions are the language of the body.

In our culture, we are often taught to suppress our feelings; to ‘toughen up’, and to ‘get on with it’.

The truth is that many of us are not taught how to connect with our emotions. Some of us are that taught it’s not ‘right’ to feel angry, hurt, disappointed or even happy. So, we can push our feelings down and to the side, and deny our inner truth.

With the unprecedented amount of alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, ill health and poor mental health, obviously something is not working for us.

How many times have you seen yourself or others use food, booze, distraction or any other coping strategy to ignore feelings? Pushing emotions down, so we don’t feel, might work in the short term—but these emotions continue to live in your body.

You’ve probably experienced trauma

Most of us experience some sort of trauma in our lives. Trauma is an emotional response to something such as a natural disaster or another emotionally disturbing or life-threatening event.

The Australian Psychological Society says trauma is a ‘very frightening or distressing events may result in a psychological wound or injury. This trauma can result in difficulty in coping or functioning normally’.

A pioneering researcher and expert on traumatic stress, Bessel van der Kolk, tells us how overwhelming experiences affect the brain, mind, and body awareness. Bessel van der Kolk shares how trauma can ‘get stuck’ in the body and how it can have a profound impact on the capacity for love and work.

Sure, sometimes we do need to push feelings to the side—to get on with it. For example, if you’re fighting a bush fire, or protecting yourself from violence, or coping from an accident, you may need to push emotions to the side—to do what needs to be done, at that crucial moment. But distress continues to live in the body.

Putting emotions to the side can be a coping strategy. And if you do anything year-on-year, like pushing down feelings, and you will get pretty good at it. But, just like running water filling a sink, river or glass —you can’t fill it forever, it will overflow. In some shape or form, it will spill over, potentially with some emotional or financial cost, and causing damage or more trauma.

Overflow can look like being constantly teary, or angry, any other emotion that you don’t want to feel. It can look like illness, depression, anxiety, and disconnection from others and the world around you.

Emotional healing is easier than you think

The good news is you can give your emotions a way to release, in a gentle, safe and controlled way. At Authentic State Coaching, we believe the best way to do this is to ‘heal thy self’ through self healing.

The body has an amazing capacity to heal itself. You can learn and practice listening to and honouring our emotions as they arise.

Your body talks to you. Emotions can safely come and go. Listening to our feelings can be a huge sense of relief. As the quote says, ‘the truth will set you free’. This release can be like unscrewing a pressure valve of trapped emotions from over the years.

Sometimes we might feel so disconnected, powerless or worthless we can forget that change is possible. A good place to start is to acknowledge your feelings.

I am an advocate for Self Directed Healing—a gentle, guided process that allows people to process unwanted emotions. We offer 90 minute on-to-one online sessions that guide people to release emotional pain and limiting beliefs. Learn more about Self Directed Healing here.

Quote: Jamie Kern Lima | Dog pic: Justin Jason

#healing #self healing #coaching #personalgrowth #authenticleadership