Emotions are so crucial to our health. Emotions give us the strength or peace to get through whatever the situation is.
- When someone dies, we want to feel grief and mourn properly. Our sad tears (there are different tears we shed) have oxytocin in them to help us feel better.
- If someone is abusive, we want to feel angry; the anger builds our strength to move away from the situation.
- When we lose at something, we want to feel disappointed and figure out how we can improve.
We often assume that life should always be rainbows and butterflies and aim to make that our goal. If we are unhappy, people say, turn that frown upside down, just remember someone has it worse, or count your blessing… and these are great for after feeling our authentic feelings. It is how we evolve.
If we only experienced positive feelings all the time, we wouldn’t even know they were positive. We need the contrast.
When we avoid our feelings, we disconnect from ourselves. We become stagnant and numb and turn to distractions and the use of external things to entertain us away from the sensations inside. The exact opposite happens when we avoid or resist something, giving it more power. The emotion then starts to control us. We become scared of feeling out of control. We tend to find different ways to distract ourselves and escape.
We love to create temporary happy feelings through distractions; (squirrel!), food, social media, alcohol, exercise, and entertainment. We have a bad day, and we watch a movie.
Yes, we shifted our mood to feel happy for the moment, but the emotion still lives in our bodies unprocessed. When we have unprocessed emotions, they can show up at inopportune times as anxiety or stress, putting our bodies into fight or flight mode, and in the moment, we cannot understand why.
It’s usually very intense and impulsive when we react to emotion instead of feeling it. It is an overreaction in which we lose our power. Our perceptions of the situation are altered in the moment, and our subconscious or autopilot mode kicks in.
The emotional charge prevents us from seeing the situation for what it is. The listening has halted, and our defenses are high. When we react, we are out of control, and when we are out of control, we lose trust in ourselves, which becomes a vicious cycle.
If learning how to healthy process your emotions for your health sounds like something you can benefit from, reply to this email.
Lori is inviting a few new 1:1 clients through a 6-week journey through the Mind-Body Synergy coaching course. Reply to this email with any questions!