Feeling Your Feelings For More Freedom

“I feel happiness and joy and love so much better than what I did before when I suppressed my emotions.”

And that is the truth.

In my own life and in so many of my client sessions, the topic of suppressed emotions has come up. When we go about our day to day life we feel a variety of emotions. It can be anything from hunger to sadness, thirst to joy. But what we choose to do with these emotions is where trouble can start.

“Minimizing some emotions, minimizes ALL emotions.”

If I’m going about my day and something makes me feel angry, I have two choices.

1. I can repress it. I can tell myself I’m angry, I’ll deal with it later, and then feel the residual side effect of that anger for the rest of the day, maybe even the week. OR

2. I can process the emotion. 

When we decide to process our emotions, we can let that emotion live it’s life cycle. Emotions are a form of energy- they move through us. When we identify an emotion, we allow it to work through our body. We feel, we accept it, and it releases. If we decide not to deal with it, it stays. 

Because emotions are energy, it will never leave our body. It will stay there and remain present until it is finally dealt with.

When we start the process of just pushing emotions down, we start to minimize them. What people fail to realize is that once you minimize one emotion, you minimize them all. You can’t choose to just feel some of them and not feel others.

“What you focus on, you feel.”

So how do you go about building your emotional core? You can make it a daily task! Throughout the day, pick times to check in with yourself and follow these 4 steps: 

1. Start by identifying your emotions. Take a moment to focus on the feeling. You may feel a pain in your stomach. It could be hunger. You may feel a sharpness in your chest. It may be excitement or nervousness.

2. Then acknowledge and appreciate those emotions. Take a moment to let yourself feel the nervousness. Embrace it.

3. Next, is to get curious. Why did you feel nervous? How did you know you were nervous?

4. Finally, take action. The more you embrace the emotion you’re feeling, the more you’re letting the emotion run its course. Because emotions are energy, the nervousness you felt will pass.

“Emotional mastery is about getting our emotions to serve us-it is regaining control of your life by building a strong and healthy emotional core.”

When you really take the time to build your emotional core, your emotions will serve you in incredible ways. When I finally took the time to resolve past emotions and check in with my current ones, it opened up my world to more joy than I have ever experienced. It is so true that you can only feel emotions if you deal with ones that are deep down.

Regain your control and enjoy the emotions you have. It is, afterall, one of the best parts of being human.

Best,

Claire