Emotion = e-motion = energy in motion.
Dr Sue Morter* defines an emotion as, a sudden influx of energy.
And I can’t find a better description, that is exactly how it feels.
When an emotion occurs, you feel a flow, you feel a rush going through your body. Whether it is a nice feeling or an anxious feeling, you feel the rush of energy going through your body.
Realizing this, you can start accepting that you are not your emotions, you are just experiencing them. And here is where the key, to dealing with emotions, lies. You are NOT your emotions. You only feel them. That is why you can take control over how you are feeling, why you can diminish the gravity of them, why you can get out of the overwhelm they can cause.
Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani, wrote about this in her latest book**. She developed her own algorithm for working with painful emotions. In literature I came across lots of similar views on the topic, and also from my own experience and as you can read in several articles I’ve written, I fully support this process.
Her algorithm** for working with painful emotions is:
Be Aware ☞Acknowledge ☞ Locate ☞Name ☞Diagnose ☞Relax ☞Release.
Personally, I believe it is interesting to do that with all kinds of emotions, not only the ones that bring you down. That way, you really get to know what is going on in your emotional life, and this knowledge can make you react more appropriately, more consciously, and you can make better decisions because of this awareness.
The first step is always: be aware. Be aware of your emotions, as this is what we are talking about here, but awareness, overall, is what I advocate as being the most important thing when you want to live consciously, and fully. Lots of people are not aware at all, not of their emotions, not of their surroundings. They just go through the (e-)motions, vaguely aware of ‘something’ amiss. To be aware, you have to focus, you have to pay attention to recognize your feelings. It’s the same with your body, once you start focusing, then you really start to feel your skin, the temperature, your muscles, … and you get to know your body a lot better. Awareness is key to live a full life.
Secondly, acknowledge the emotion. This can be a little tricky as we’ve all learned to be ‘good’, and therefore we can feel shame or guilt when certain emotions arise. But emotions just are, they are neither good or bad. Just pay attention to the message they are bringing you as this is very important information. If you ignore your emotions, they will get stuck in your subconscious and sooner or later, you’ll get an inappropriate eruption of suppressed emotions, or you’ll get physically ill because of it and most of the times, you will never realize those unaccepted feelings are the cause of it. To help the process of accepting, of acknowledging your emotions, change your language. Instead of saying ‘I am angry’, you say, ‘I feel angry’. And that has a whole different ring to it. You label the emotion as something temporarily. When you say ‘I feel sad’, you know you can feel differently in a while. When you say ‘I am sad’, it seems you will be for a long time.
Thirdly: locate the emotion in your body. That is very important when you want to work with, and change, your emotions. Knowing where it is located in your body, understanding what it does to your body, will make you able to deal with it. You can feel dizzy, you can feel a heavy weight on your chest, you can have trouble breathing, you can start sweating, … all those things are elements you can work with. As dr. Sue explains in her book*, you can breathe stress away, for instance, by doing the central channel breathing. You can ease your pain through breathing. Breathwork*** is very powerful.
The fourth step is to name the emotion. The more precise you can name your emotion, the more you can start working with it. If you say, I am feeling depressed. That is a very wide and vague concept. If, on the other hand, you can be more precise and say ‘I feel rejected’, it becomes very concrete and you can start dealing with it more accurately. It also trains your emotional intelligence by naming it very specifically. The better you know what is going on, the more efficient you can find out where it originated, and how to work it through.
The fifth step is to diagnose: what is the emotion telling you?
Emotions arise and they carry very important information. It is crucial for your emotional and overall well-being, to receive, and hear the message. Ask yourself:
‘Why is this emotion occurring?’
‘What is it telling me?’
Don’t ignore the message. Read the information in your emotions.
Why am I so upset with criticism? Am I insecure? Do I feel unworthy?
Why am I so rattled by this argument? Does it emphasize my own fears?
This step is not an easy one. You will need to be very honest and very courageous. As long as you do not receive the message the emotion is giving you, the emotion will stay fixated in your body. Once you’ve heard, and acknowledged, it, the emotion will move on. In this step it is important to hear and to understand the message. Later on, you can start dealing with the cause of it. Make sure you are receptive to the message using these first aid techniques.
In the sixth step, it is important to be able to relax. The stronger the emotion, the more intense the physical sensation will be. So, again, as a first aid technique, relaxing the body is a way of easing the intensity of the emotion away. The normal reaction of a body to pain and stress, is to tense up. But this makes your pain and stress even worse. Luckily the reverse causality also works***. As I described in part 2 of my book***, your body posture, your breathing, relaxes your body and as a result of a relaxed body, emotional turmoil also disappears. Of course, these are first aid techniques. After the initial relaxation, you have to continue listening to the message and acting upon what you’ve learned. Once you’ve been able to relax your body and the emotional turmoil, you will be on a different vibrational frequency, and you can start dealing with the cause of those turbulent emotions. The problem, and the solution to the problem, never vibrate on the same frequency. It is necessary to bring yourself to a higher vibrational frequency****. These first aid techniques are necessary to be able to proceed towards healing.
Seventh and last step, release. As I wrote in many of my articles*****, it is up to us to release unwanted emotions, to let go of limiting beliefs, harmful thoughts, … You can train your mental muscles to clear out your subconscious mind of negative baggage. Here, in the seventh step, you will let go of the painful emotions, after you’ve received their message loud and clear. You can let it go by visualizing the emotion going away, by repeating a sentence as a mantra “I am letting you go, thank you for the information.”, by putting it into the fire***** Choose what works for you to let go of a thought, of an emotion.
Once you’ve started using these steps whenever overwhelm, discomfort, … occurs, you’ll get better and better at understanding, and dealing, with emotions.
That way, you’ll not only feel better emotionally, you’ll also be in less pain and be a lot healthier overall, as there will be less and less blockages due to undealt with feelings.
Thank you all for reading me, and for supporting me on Medium! If you want unlimited access to all of my articles, and of many other authors, you can become a Medium Member. You’ll be supporting me and all the other authors. Many, many thanks to you all!!!
Katrien
*”The Energy Codes” by dr. Sue Morter.
**”Becoming Flawesome” by Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani.
***”Less is Yes!” by Katrien Degraeve.
****”Ask and It is Given” by Jerry and Esther Hicks.
*****”The Trouble is, it’s All up to YOU. The Good thing is, it’s All up to You. By Katrien Degraeve.
*****” Shaman, Healer, Sage.” By dr Alberto Villoldo