GH - Emotional Inventory

This week's episode invites you to explore your emotional self. What if we could release our emotions just as efficiently and effectively as we can release our bodily wastes? Talk about emotionally healthy! guidedharmonies.com

Transcript

Welcome to Guided Harmonies, a podcast where I put words to my therapeutic music. My name is Margaret Dahlberg and today’s episode, Emotional Inventory, explores our relationship with our own emotions. The frequencies and vibrations of this music will connect to your body and its different vibrations & frequencies, creating a greater sense of well being. Meanwhile, my words will use somatics to take you on an introspective journey, using the mind-body connection to survey your internal self.

Let’s get started.

Find a quiet place and sit back or lie down and close your eyes. Then let the Guided harmonies do their thing. 

As the music surrounds you, take a moment to check in with your breathing. Be curious and allow yourself to assess just where you are now. How deep are your breaths? How about your body? Think about the places you often hold your tensions. Are those places heavy and relaxed as you listen to these words? Just notice. There is no need to change anything.

Many of us grew up when little was known or considered about the emotional health of children. Because of this lack of awareness, there wasn’t always a lot of consideration for children’s feelings. It was not unusual for parents to use guilt and shame as a teaching or disciplinary tool. Emotions were often seen as a sign of weakness and even ridiculed. As a result, many of us developed coping mechanisms that were not necessarily emotionally healthy. Some of us became overly emotional or angry, others became emotionally closed or disconnected. 

Take some time to inquire within about your own emotional health. Think about the times in your life when you become emotional. What big emotions do you tend to feel more of: Anger or tears? If it is tears, what lies beneath? Tears can be related to many feelings: sadness, nostalgia, grief, frustration and even gratitude or happiness. If it is anger, how do you express it? Do you yell or get very quiet? Just be curious about your answers, there is no right or wrong here. 

Do you ever notice that your anger or tears are displaced, coming out as road rage or weeping during a commercial? Are there particular people you will be more angry with or cry harder in front of? Do you tend to be more comfortable in an emotional state in front of strangers or loved ones? What happens when you begin to feel emotions? Do you allow your emotions to expand or do you work hard to stop them? You may inquire here without judgment. This exercise may simply bring you to a greater sense of self-awareness. 

Emotions are as much a part of a bodily function of the brain as digesting is a bodily function to the stomach. In fact, often our Emotions feel messy, just as our excretory system does. Consequently, we attempt to control the release of our emotion, which may eventually compromise our emotional health. Consider what happens when we try to control the release of bodily wastes? We are given a healthy amount of control to allow us time to find appropriate facilities, but if we hold our wastes for too long, we may develop ill health. Imagine if every time you feel your emotions coming on, you could simply find an appropriate moment to release them, just as you are able to release gas or urine? And once the emotion is released, you may continue on your way. This is something we may all learn.

First, we must process and release the emotion we have been holding onto and accumulating over the years. How do we do this? We drop the fight. We stop trying to control our emotional responses and allow ourselves to become emotional. We find the people and places that create safe spaces for us. And from there, we simply just breathe, or talk or both. We talk about our feelings. We breathe into our feelings. We allow our emotions to expand, just as we allow our bodies to relax or our breaths to deepen. 

Now check in with your breathing again. How much air is flowing in and out of your body? Are you breathing into your chest or your belly? Are your breaths laboured or forced? Perhaps they are quite shallow and still? Just notice. 

Check in with your body and see how heavily it is resting against that which is supporting you. Scan your feet, through your calves & quads to your hips & buttocks. As you breathe, check in with the weight of your pelvis & belly moving toward your ribs, your back and your chest. See if you can feel the heaviness of your skull and allow your eyes, your jaw and you neck to surrender to that weight. 

Breathe in the love and the hope. 

You now have a deeper sense of self-awareness.