THE BODY-MIND-BRAIN CONNECTION OF EMOTION
Your emotional life is influenced by your body, brain, and mind. This means that you can transform your brain, body, and mind so that they are primed for a balanced emotional life. Working with any one aspect will influence the others. It’s all connected. Not only can you actively work with the energy of arising emotions to your benefit, you can deliberately create the ones that you want to feel. At the Freedom Healing Centre Rachel coaches you through your emotions, and provides therapy in Brookvale to treat anxiety, heal depression, childhood abuse, and other conditions that can throw your emotional life out of wack.
Emotions Happen in the Body
How do you know what you are feeling? We experience emotions as sensations and visceral states, so your body lets you know. Is your heart rate slow or fast? What about your breathing rate? Do you notice a pressure on the chest, or an open feeling? Do you experience any sensations anywhere else on the body? What kind of sensations? (eg: tingling, itching, stinging, bubbles, tickling, fuzziness). Your brain and body hold the record.
Your diet is also part of a balanced emotional life. You may have heard that gut health has a direct impact on your mood. Maintaining stable blood sugar can help reduce anxiety and keep good adrenal health which is protective against stress. Vitamin B is also protective against stress.
If you feel that your mood could be connected with your diet your should seek the advice of a functional nutritionist. Toxicity in the body can lead to irritability, invite unwanted guests (like worms), and just make it harder to feel vibrant. Research some cleanses, get loads of fibre, and get hydrated! Every piece of the puzzle is important because all the pieces are inter-connected.
Exercise is also a great way to get your body to cooperate with your mood. Physical stability and strength will translate into emotional stability and strength. Find something active that you enjoy doing where exercise is a joyful side benefit!
Emotions Happen in the Mind
We have names for our emotions. We recognise the signals of the body, and label them according to the names we have learned. When we felt happy as toddlers, our parents could say ‘you are happy!’ (this is called mirroring) and we learned the word for that emotion. If our caregivers were not able to mirror properly, we can experience confusion about what we are feeling, have a hard time identifying what others are feeling, and even feel chronic emptiness.
If we learned that it is wrong to feel angry or fearful, we might pretend that we do not feel those things. This denial makes it impossible to work with the emotions because we benefit temporarily by avoiding them and they get stuck inside.
Your emotional experience is always accurate. What is not always accurate is perception. We can come to conclusions that are based on inaccurate or incomplete information. The way that you focus your mind, and the meaning that you assign to experiences can also create certain emotional experiences. These conclusions will still make us feel a certain way. Like the time you thought that your friend was ignoring your calls, but really forgot her phone at home that day. Or how your Uncle believes that anger is bad so he pushes it down.
(By the way, the process of naming the emotion you are feeling can calm you down because naming what you are feeling puts you in the position of an observer and corresponds with the activity of cortical brain. Labelling your emotion is kind of like watching the train go by vs feeling railroaded by it).
Emotions Happen in the Brain
Our emotional life can be based on out of date information. This information is often rooted in past trauma. When we have a bad experience, the emotions of that experience are coded in the brain and body. The emotion acts like coloured glasses, where the trapped/encoded emotion is projected onto present life. When emotional energy is locked in with trauma experiences, it can be good to have the facilitation of a trauma healer in order to release them.
The brain grows in stages. Different parts of the brain develop at different points in life. From birth to 6 years of age, the brain is developing its ability to regulate your emotions. This is why talking therapy alone sometimes does not work. When we are working with early life traumas, therapies can be targeted to heal the area of the brain that were stressed under development.
Therapies like EMDR, rhythmic movements, certain energy healing, and drumming for example can teach the brain get your body calm, when it did not get the chance to do so during the first stage of your growth.
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Rachel Anenberg, BA (Psyc), BSW, MSW (Master of Social Work) is a psychotherapist and spiritual coach providing integrative therapy. Her expertise as a psychotherapist come from a combined background and education in psychology, social work, and soul sciences.
Psychotherapy with Rachel can help you to heal depression, treat anxiety, recover from child abuse, adult abuse & narcissistic abuse. Genuine happiness is often out of reach because of unhealed past experiences. Psychotherapy can help you to get in control and feel naturally happy.
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Disclaimer: All information obtained from Rachel Anenberg or anything written or said by her, is to be taken solely as advisory in nature. Rachel Anenberg and Freedom Healing Centre will not be held personally, legally, or financially liable for any action taken based upon their advice. The opinions expressed in this article are based on the research, studies, professional and personal experiences of the author.
The principles and techniques taught in this article are based on the personal and professional experience of the authour as a intuitive healer and psychotherapist, trained in Psychology (BA) and Social Work (MSW). Rachel Anenberg does not claim to be a doctor or provider of medical advice. The author is not a psychologist or psychiatrist and is not able to diagnose medical or psychiatric ailments.
By utilising the techniques in this article, the participant acknowledges that he/she assumes full responsibility for the knowledge gained herein and its application. The reader takes full responsibility for the way they utilise and exercise the information in this article. The key points discussed are guidelines and suggestions for the support of personal development. This article is not intended as a replacement for facilitated psychological therapies. Anyone using the information in this article acknowledges that they have read and understand the details of this disclaimer.