It’s another week another day and I can tell you this week I am processing a lot of emotions including Anger. I thought it would be fitting to write a little post on how we deal with or in many cases do not deal with our emotions.
I’ve read many books in the last year that all say in one way or another how we suppress our emotions because we do not feel safe enough to allow them out. This starts for a lot of us as children, we are told not to be angry, to calm down when we are happy, or not to brag about our accomplishments. The list goes on and is very different and unique for most of us. But one thing that is common is many of us on some level do not allow ourselves to really feel what we are feeling. These pent up emotions then become physical pains, or emotional blocks for our growth and in my case both.
I am a feeler, I always have been and as I get older I feel more and more and more. I numbed a lot of my emotions over the years in various ways. This wonderful universe of ours though only keeps giving you the things you push away until we stand up a deal with them.
So today I am ANGRY! There is a certain situation in our business life that has me worked up like you wouldn’t believe. I normally react to things that should be small as a level 10 and things that are a big deal only get about a 3 or a 4. Why? Because I do not know how to process my shit. The first thing I want to do is get super angry at the person and let the shit storm of anger unleash upon their heads. This however is never effective, so I learned to just suppress it, so as not to rock the boat. My internal boat though is riding some rough seas right now and I have had to adapt some new tricks to let these emotions out so I can effectively handle the situation with the person in a manner that is firm but doesn’t result in me ripping them a new ass.
So here are my 5 tricks to feeling what you need to feel:
1.Breathe
This is one of my favorite techniques to handling all my emotions especially the anxiety and anger. When I feel it bubbling up inside me, I take a minute sit upright in a chair or on the floor, and take 10 deep breathes in and out. I visualize my breathe going in as a blue healing light surrounding the anger within and when I exhale I imagine it carrying the feelings outward. MY breathing into our feelings we are able to give ourselves permission to feel it and to create space for the emotion to be dealt with in a healthy way.
2. Give Yourself permission
So many times when I have started to get upset and just pushed it down. I’ve replayed the situation in my head getting angrier and angrier inside but not allowing that emotion to leave my body. I do this even with love. If I start to fall in love, or even feel overwhelming love for my children, my mind goes to a “what If it’s taken from you” fear. I shut the love off and leave it all bottled up inside. So my new thing is to change my internal dialogue to look something like this: “You are in a safe place to feel that anger, you have a right to be angry, feel the anger, let it out.” Or “Hey Me, You are falling in love! That’s awesome! How great does this feel. There is always a chance it will be taken away but you have know way to know, so ya know what buddy.. just feel that love, its safe to feel love!” By telling yourself I can feel angry, or love, or hurt, or whatever it may be, it gives me a chance to really let it out and center myself.
3. Journaling
This is something I have done off and on since I was a kid and it is honestly the best. I write about how pissed I am, or fearful or whatever it is I’ve got going on inside. My journal is my safe place. I can write whatever I need to, just to let the emotions run free and allow them out. I can tell the person who screwed me over on a bill all the things I want to without hurting them or myself. Once I process this I can think more clearly about what it is I really want to say to them.
4. Burn the Energy Off
Movement is a great way to use your body to burn off excess emotions as fuel. I particularly like Yoga first thing in the morning as I get to breathe, meditate and move all at the same time. I find it really allows me the chance to center myself and to quiet the thoughts long enough to just feel. This morning’s Yoga sequence was faster paced and intense, I was sweating and so tired when I was done, but I felt great. The bonus, I was not nearly as angry and able to think about what it was I wanted to say and what it was that was really bothering. If you cannot get to a gym or a studio (I know I can’t) YouTube is a great resource that you can utilize in your own home, get out for a walk or put on some music and dance your heart out!
5. Tap it Out
EFT or tapping is a great technique to use to help work through emotions and in many cases find out what the deeper root to the issue is. If you Google EFT charts there are tons of images that will show you various points to tap on. But the premise behind tapping is that it works to retrain how the brain processes emotions by using various points along the meridians of the body to redirect our emotions and get to the root of them. This technique has been used successfully in PTSD around the world. A quick note if your issues run deep and you know that seek out the help of a profession counselor to really allow you to get to the root cause.
We can’t change our patterns in a day but we can continually add tools to our toolbox that help us process things that come up. We can set an intention to let things flow that bother us, accept what is in ourselves and in others and be open to new ways to do things. Today just be the observer in your own body, let the things you are feeling really be felt and see how much of a difference that makes.
Love, Light and Purpose,
Rachel
