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Feeling Your Emotions Is an Act of Self-Love
This lingering pandemic is teaching us many lessons, the least of which is we can’t hide from ourselves anymore. When isolated during restrictions, we must face our trauma. There is no other way. It is an act of courage to deal with our emotions without fearing or running away from them. For in deferring our complex emotions, we postpone our healing. Can you identify? For example, have you been coping with being isolated from family, friends, and loved ones in recent months? What have complex emotions surfaced during this time? How have you dealt with them?
Here’s an idea to consider: Many have noticed heavy emotions arise during the pandemic because of the pain involved. They have been isolated from loved ones, while others have lost their jobs. Many have families to feed, mortgages, and the financial and emotional stress has become unbearable. These pressures can bring up emotional pain, and if we don’t work through it, we experience stress. We cannot escape the pain because where will we go? Mental health therapists are inundated due to the pressure of the pandemic we haven’t faced before. We cannot stow away our emotions or distract ourselves with other activities because they are unavailable now. It is why people are suffering because they must deal with the heavy emotions brewing for years. We must face them now, and if we can’t do it alone, we ought to seek the guidance of a mental health therapist or reach out to those we love and trust.
The point I wish to reinforce is: By facing our trauma, we are practicing self-love. This practice of self-love is the critical message in this article. Facing your pain and feeling your emotions is the highest act of self-love you can give yourself. Deferring your emotional pain allows it to gnaw at you and grow in intensity. As mentioned earlier, sitting and feeling our dark emotions is courageous because it is challenging to work through emotional pain and trauma. But we have no other choice because the feelings are coming up; pushing them away makes them stronger. So why not process them as best you can?
Welcome Your Difficult Emotions
Are you satisfied with this idea? Are you comfortable working through your difficulties emotions, knowing it is an act of self-love? I realize working through painful emotions may not seem like self-love. Nonetheless, it is through self-compassion and self-nurturing; we cultivate our emotional wellbeing. Self-love recognizes we are not our pain but something more profound. We are a soul, having an earthly experience within a physical body. We may identify with our pain and trauma because our wounds give a sense of entitlement; to feel and act in a certain way. I’m not suggesting it is entirely wrong, but a learned coping mechanism. After all, it is not enough to merely cope and get by. We ought to thrive as best we can. The soul may use pain as a healing agent to remove emotional debris from our lives so our true nature can emerge.
To take this idea further, we must practice coming home to ourselves to transform our heavy emotions. I mean, sitting with our difficult emotions and processing them through mindfulness or Somatic Experiencing, under the guidance of a trained therapist. I don’t know about you, but in the last 18 months, I have experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. There have been good times, and then suddenly, I am thrust into unexplained darkness, with heavy emotions looming over my head. Initially, I tried to distract myself with activities, but eventually, I dealt with my feelings. I know valuable insights are waiting to come forth when I connect with them. They are messengers from my highest self to teach me lessons about my life’s journey.
Therefore, when difficult emotions emerge, your practice is to stop what you are doing, no matter what. You may occupy your time playing video games, watching streaming movies, drinking alcohol, or whatever else. When heavy emotions arise, just sit with them. Feel them, welcome them and be with them, with your entire mind and body. Could you allow yourself the gift of connecting with your deepest and darkest self? Are you willing to learn about yourself as a soul? Processing emotions may take five minutes or longer to move through your nervous system. Don’t delay or put it off because you are busy, scared, or indifferent. It only makes it harder and intensifies the pain.
Transform Your Pain
For example, in the book My Stroke of Insight by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor, she states the natural life span of emotion; the average time it takes to move through the nervous system and body is one and a half minutes. After that, we need thoughts to keep the emotion alive. No wonder painful emotions wreak havoc because we keep them active through our stream of inner dialogue. We add fuel to the fire every time we identify with our pain and create a mental dialogue. The way out of this cycle is to allow the emotion to move through you, so it transforms your pain. Therefore, I invite you to regularly practice processing your heavy emotions and journal what you learn during the process. Become an observer and try to be curious about what surfaces.
But here’s the thing: Be careful not to criticize or judge yourself during this time. Simply observe the emotions and note how you feel after processing them. Many of my clients had remarked on feeling inner peace and freedom when they undertook this practice. If you wish to go deeper into the practice, I highly recommend a late Dr. David Hawkins book called: Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. Dr. Hawkins was an internationally renowned psychiatrist who explored consciousness. His books and teachings are an opening into self-awareness and awakened states of consciousness. After all, the purpose of our heavy emotions is to lead us back towards ourselves, to dip our toes in the expansive sea of self-love. It is this sea that is the embodiment of our true nature and the place we call home.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10514079
AUTHOR: Tony Fahkry
