Emotions are the expression of life. The word emotion literally means energy in motion (e-motion) we all experience and express emotions and need to have emotional harmony in our lives for our own personal health and happiness. Just like a nutritional deficiency will weaken the immune system or harm metabolism a negative emotion held onto or suppressed for too long will have affects also.
There are two very important life lessons when it comes to emotions that you didn’t learn in school that are so valuable to your health and happiness. Understanding emotions and how they move in, through and out of you is extremely important, and that is the first lesson. Emotions flow, like a river of water, full of energy and expression making turns left and right. Emotions are the energetic essence of life and without understanding this we inflict more self-harm to our own health and happiness in the process. The river flows and changes throughout life and without understanding that we cannot fully understand ourselves.
This river of emotions is everyday life, we travel down it on a raft not controlling where we go because the whitewater current is too strong for us to beat it with our little raft. We cannot beat our emotions, we can not suppress them into submission and control all emotions all the time. If the path down the river is misunderstood you will float like a helpless river drafter without a paddle until this river dumps you into a big blue sea where you will be really lost, confused, and feel stranded.
The Emotional River Of Life…
What’s the difference between you rafting down this whitewater river on a raft for the first time and a seasoned expert guide on the river? The seasoned guide knows how to control this small raft to navigate through the river (of emotions) and you for the first time going into this emotional turmoil (river) see it as frightening and unsure. Just like that river raft guide experience seasons emotional strength and harmony.
Sometimes we lose our emotions, sometimes we find our emotions. Sometimes we need to do a little bit of both, finding and losing ourselves emotionally.
We live in a society so afraid of emotions, emotional expression and misunderstanding that we literally medicate, drug and do everything in our power to push or suppress our emotions away from us. Our lack of understanding creates disharmony between ourselves and our emotions. We feel uncomfortable in our own skin when emotions are suppressed, pushed down and neglected.
What we fail to realize with our logical minds is that emotions are linked to every organ within our body and that our health and wellness and overall feeling of happiness are linked to the understanding and processing of emotions. What do you do with negative emotions? what do you do with positive emotions? How do you think that emotions effect your heart? lungs? stress levels? cognitive thinking? have you ever asked these questions?
The truth is that every single emotion we have (positive or negative) effects our body. If it’s a negative emotion that negative e-motion is a form of stress on your body. If it’s a broken heart from a bad relationship we internalize that and our heart is literally suppressed by this. If there is something in your life that you don’t feel you can handle emotionally and it’s hard to process the digestive system (the processing system within your body) will feel the effects.
How Do Emotions Effect Us Physically?
If you don’t feel supported your lower back or knees may feel weak because that tangible support structure isn’t there for you and you emotionalize it internally. On the other hand emotions also serve us. When someone supports, loves, cherishes and validates us we feel strong, happy and vibrant. Our essence walks high and our confidence rises. We laugh and smile more which creates happy brain chemistry that eases pain and keeps your body harmonized and optimized.
We need an emotional gatekeeper in our lives. A gatekeeper that supports and encourages positive emotional experiences and the expression of those experiences and a gatekeeper that also audits our negative emotions and let’s them know they cannot rest and fester in our river of life. This is not to say that negative emotions are bad or to be avoided. Expressing emotions is the process of releasing them. If you feel hurt, confused, lost or heartbroken it is better to express that than to internalize it and let your hurt and pain become a part of your IDENTITY which is a dangerous yet silent spirit killing culprit.
When negativity (pessimism or the allowance of negative people in your life) continues you build up a toxic emotional reservoir that begins to change your core identity into something that you are not. You are NOT your emotions. Repeat that over and over. We can often confuse our core identity with our emotions and what we are feeling or how those feelings have become stagnant and suppressed our spirit over time.
The emotional river of life is rich with dense value if we can interpret and navigate it’s choppy waters. We must first learn to begin with a basic understanding that the reason the intimidating whitewater is fun for the guide is because they’ve been down that river a million times before. They see something as fun that most people see as fearful. I challenge you to face your emotions, I challenge you to navigate the river of energy in motion (e-motion) and understand why we have emotions in the first place? and what to do with them? These are the two emotional lessons of life we must learn in order to thrive.
With that being said, here is the graphic sharing how emotional pain effects each area of your body:
There is hope on this emotional scale of confusion. Thankfully there are people who have studied many years to understand emotional well-being and educate and share their wisdom to help others. If you are ready to begin the journey into the world of emotions to understand why you feel what you feel and what to do about it I highly recommend reading the book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die along with The Emotion Code. There are many practicioners that specialize in emotional release work using different therapies. I personally like and recommend TRE (Trauma release exercises) by David Berceli as one practice to engage in.
Here’s a video I recorded to share this article (in video form) with some additional thoughts:
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