Winding up this month’s topic on emotions, a couple more things (I wasn’t kidding in my newsletter when I said I had written a lot!).

Are you like me and learning on the fly how to more freely express your emotions? This wasn’t something that was really talked about in my family. Sometimes we don’t realize how much we’ve been influenced by those around us. Many things weren’t specifically taught to us, we learned by observing, especially as kids. It’s worthwhile to think about how your family expresses different emotions… joy, pain, sorrow, anger, love. You may see similarities between yourself and a family member(s) that can then help you make positive changes. That happened with me. I felt irritated with a co-worker and fell into an old pattern. I started joking around with him as we continued working. On the surface it appeared as jokes and teasing, but there was a mean undercurrent to it, subtly cutting him down. Something felt off inside me as I was doing it and later on I saw the pattern of that within my family. Since then, I’ve been more aware of it. If I start going down that path, I know by the feeling I get inside. I know that something’s difficult for me to express and I need to do it in a better way.

I was talking with my friend Kathy about emotions and we got to what may be the million-dollar question. Is there a best way to handle emotions? We’re going to be having them the rest of our lives, so is there a best practice or point to strive for? We both agree that you’re in a healthy place when you have an emotion come up, can acknowledge it, feel it and then let it flow through you. I think all of us are already doing that to some extent with emotions like happiness and love. Have you ever been in the middle of something and think to yourself “wow, I’m so happy right now!”? I bet you didn’t have any problem with feeling that happiness and letting it flow out in your words and actions. So now expand that to the emotions like anger and sadness. This may cause you to bump up against some beliefs you have about those kinds of emotions – like expressing them, having them in the first place or how long you have to feel them. That’s ok, change or release the belief for one that works for you!

Here’s something you can play with. Is there a difference between saying “I am” and “I feel” an emotion? Try this little energy experiment. Using a lower vibration emotion, say each one of these phrases. Pause between each one and see how it feels. I’m going to use anger as the example. “I am angry.” “I feel angry.” Do you feel a difference? Using “I am” says it’s a part of you, part of your essence, it defines you. Using “I feel” says it is something you are just experiencing, something temporary. Try it again but this time use a high vibration emotion like happy. Because our soul, our essence is love, using “I am” with an emotion like happy feels good because it resonates with who we really are, the vibrations are similar. Whereas using “I am” with an emotion like anger doesn’t feel good because the vibrations are so different. Over the next few days, notice when and how you use “I am” and pay attention to how you feel when you do!

Last week I unexpectedly had some emotions bubble up. I pulled the muscles on one side of my back and was having muscle spasms. I went to my chiropractor and he did some adjustments. Afterwards, I felt some relief but there was still one spot where the muscle was tight. He put his hand on the spot and kept it there. I felt a little better. He put his other hand on the front of my body, like he was holding the spot on both sides. I felt like something was going on in my body, so I just kept breathing deeply. During one of those breaths, I felt something start coming up from the area of my stomach. It felt deep and old. I thought I was going to start crying but the tears never came. Something was bubbling up.

The next day I tweaked something in my neck and my back began spasming again. It was very uncomfortable and I wanted to go back to the chiropractor, but wouldn’t you know it, he’s closed that day! So I settled in at home and tried to get comfortable. I watched a movie, picking something that I thought would make me cry, but no tears! Kathy called me and I told her what was going on. She was nearby and said she was coming over. She had me sit on the couch and put her hand on my back, guiding me to ask my body what was going on, to talk to me. About 2 minutes later, the tears started and we ended up working with my inner child, going back to when my parents got divorced at age 7. She helped me in releasing and healing the emotions that were finally coming to the surface. I’ll be honest, after she left, my back was spasming more and I felt worse, but later on I started to feel better. The next morning, even though my back was still spasming a bit, my body was more relaxed and I felt calmer inside. That’s the funny thing with stuck emotions, the ones you shoved down and tried to ignore. You never know what’s going to trigger them. You never know when they’ll bubble up. But know that at some point they will. As physically painful as that was, I’m glad for the chance to let that emotional baggage go! I definitely feel better!

Another thing I am grateful for in that experience is my chiropractor’s reaction when I told him I thought I was going to cry. He asked me if it was a physical release. I told him both physical and emotional. He simply said ok and let it be. If the tears had started then, I would have let them flow. Have you ever experienced a time when you were expressing an emotion, like sadness, and you can tell it makes people around you uncomfortable, so you stop? Make a promise to yourself that you are not going to stop feeling something or swallow an emotion because it makes others feel uncomfortable. I mentioned in Part 1 that people start crying during a reading with me and apologize for it! To me, that’s part of why they’re there – to heal. I’m totally fine with it, so why apologize, why hold back the tears? Or why, when we have tears of joy, do we feel like we have to explain that they’re tears of joy, not sadness? Or hide when something moves us to tears, like a movie or event? Or apologize or feel bad about being in a good mood when someone around us is in a crappy, angry mood? I say enough is enough! Let the tears flow, let the happiness and anger and contentment and fear and love flow through you and right on out! We know there are healthy ways to do it! We just need to keep doing it and we’ll keep getting better and better at it!