Why Expressing Your Emotions Is Essential For a Healthy Body
Experiencing certain emotions can test the very core of who we are. Yes, we love the upbeat and joyful ones that are light and happy, we’re content to play in those feelings forever. However, allowing ourselves to feel the heavier, more oppressive ones, seems to be a completely different story, we tend to shut them down and not allow ourselves the time to interpret them. Shutting them down, because we don’t have enough time to deal with them, is something we as humans do extremely well.
Have you ever wondered what that does to your body?
Well, the easiest way to break it down is to realise our feelings and emotions as energy in motion (e-motion). And the one thing we know about energy is, it’s like water, it likes to be continually moving and flowing if it’s still for too long it gets stagnant and blocked.
Now think of a feeling you’ve had, that for whatever reason, you didn’t allow yourself to feel. Whether it was because you were at work or in public or you didn’t want the other person to know how much they affected you. That feeling (energy) is toxic if left to reside in your body. Repressing this emotion causes it to become trapped in your body, then your nervous system kicks in and helps you to feel safe again and you forget about it.
The problem with that is, if you don’t come back to deal with that emotion and allow it to move through you, it becomes trapped. This is how we obtain many of our aches and pains and illnesses throughout our body. Depending on where your body has decided to trap the emotion and how severe, it could minimise the flow of your blood, air, nerves, fibres, tendons and so on. Your body will then find a way to get as much flow back through your body by moving around the blockage, this is where our physical ailments then begin to show in our body.
This is why it’s so important to nurture the relationship you have with your body, mind and soul. They each speak to you in different ways and the more you listen to how life and the environment around you makes you feel, the easier it is to understand why your emotions are so crucial to your wellbeing.
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RECOGNISING THE MESSAGE BEHIND YOUR HEAVIER EMOTIONS
SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED TO ALLOW YOUR EMOTIONS TO BE FELT
Human nature pushes us to try to understand and control that which we do not know. We seem to want to fix things we believe are broken, but sometimes it’s broken for a reason. The reason being, we need to FEEL it.
Yes, there definitely is a time and place for understanding what your energy and emotions are trying to tell you, but also, just as important is that sometimes we need to get out of our head and just feel.
Allowing yourself the time to embody the emotion is sometimes all that is needed to then let it move through you. We don’t need to always figure it out, sometimes e-motions are just that, energy in motion. Allow yourself the time you need to feel it. This could be as simple as a few minutes or it could take you on a journey through the dark night of your soul, whichever it is, allow it to take its natural course and move through you.
I remember sitting with some extremely heavy emotions that surfaced when I was caring for my father before he passed. These were familiar patterns that carried immense emotions from my childhood. However, understanding that the shadow aspects of our emotions aren’t here to hurt us, can lighten the discomfort of the pain you’re feeling and guide you to a much more purposeful path.
EATING YOUR EMOTIONS
This is something I am very familiar with. I grew up in a family that didn’t express their emotions, so when you’re surrounded with people who don’t communicate and who permanently avoid conflict, you quickly learn ways to help you cope. Back then, I was too young to understand how to deal with my emotions, so as unhealthy as it was, I ate them. It was the only way I knew how to make myself feel better and survive my environment.
You do what you have to do until you know better.
Emotional eating provides us with an escape, a temporary pick me up from something we may not understand or are trying to avoid.
Just imagine the benefits of not eating your emotions, but truly understanding them.
Most people would probably think, yes I’d lose weight, and that could be true, but I think of how healthy your mind and soul would be as well as your body.
A few tips for assessing the feeling when it arises:
When you notice the desire to eat starts to run through your head if it’s not due to actual hunger, run through a list of emotions and ask yourself if it could be any of them. See if any of those emotions trigger a thought about something that may be worrying you. This works well in front of a mirror, it makes you more likely to be truthful.
Am I stressed?
Am I upset?
Am I annoyed?
Am I disappointed?
Am I bored?
These are obviously only a handful of possibilities, as you start to understand your emotions better, make your own list that is more personal to you.
When you’ve discovered which emotion is causing this feeling, see if a particular memory comes to mind. You may find you are still holding onto a past event or even something that’s coming up that you’re anxious about. You’ll be amazed how naming it can remove the hold it has over you.
Maybe even take it a step further and journal the feelings that surface. Seeing it on paper in front of you can help to take the hunger out of your head and face the underlying emotional issue.
If you’re not ready to deal with the actual emotion, that’s ok, perhaps fill that emotion with a different kind of comfort, read a book, meditate, listen to some music or call a friend. And if you feel you want to start to interpret what your emotions are telling you, please reach out. I offer a free 30-minute discovery call to help you navigate how you can start to change your life with a few simple techniques.
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