Introduction to Emotion
Emotion is a powerful and universal human experience. Emotions sabotage us and they serve us. They block our creativity and they energise it. They can damage our bodies and heal them. They create the atmosphere of war, and support communal well being. We are uplifted by our emotions, and pulled down by them.
Our embodiment give us the ability to feel emotions. Without the body, there is no emotion. This leaves us no choice but to master them. Emotions are not a scary thing. We simply never learned what an emotion is or how to feel one.
You had to learn how to drive a car, but nobody ever sent you for a feeling license. The sooner you master the flow of your emotions (instead of avoiding, suppressing, or denying them!) the sooner you can use their energy to empower your life, your health, and your soul.
It is fatiguing to resist emotions and isolating to hide them from others. The trapped energy of emotions disturbs the health of our bodies because emotions use the same pathways of communication as our organs do.
You need tools to discharge negative emotions, tools to integrate the positive ones, and tools to keep the inner balance. Rachel provides psychotherapy in Sydney that can help you to master your emotional life, and use your emotional energy to create the life you want to live.
Why It’s Important to Feel Your Emotions
No Tools, No Voice, No Thunder
When we do not give voice to our emotions, we find ourselves feeling stuck. If you think of the flow of your life as a river; blocked emotions are like a dam that stops the flow. Suppressing or avoiding emotions traps us in the very states that we want to avoid and causes life to stagnate.
When we actively suppress emotions, or take actions to avoid emotions – we are handling our emotions indirectly. I want you to have all the tools you need to experience emotions actively and directly. This puts you in charge.
Although we can dissociate from our bodies to avoid emotions, or distract ourselves from them by becoming busy, shut them down with will power, or replace them temporarily with activities…. the energy of emotions does not leave the body until we allow it to leave the body. Some things you might notice about avoiding emotions:
- We get busy. The more time we spend working, attending social functions, and re-organising our closets the less time we spend consciously feeling. In other words – distraction until bed time.
- Alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. These substances alter our moods and can be a form of self-medication. Until we heal the past emotional pain, and master the emotions that come up day to day, we will look for external relief.
- Seek pleasure. This corresponds to the point above. We can only handle feeling bad for so long, and will find ways to experience good feelings if we struggle to self-generate them (there are good reasons for this too, and you are not to blame). Sex, food, and Netflix binges come to mind.
- Caffeine. Caffeine is often a solution for sleep deprivation and is linked in with the ‘being busy’ strategy – we even avoid rest to avoid ourselves!
- Rationalise. We can get pretty good at telling reasonable stories about why we will not go to certain places, see certain people, or do certain things. It can be valid, and you should respect your personal boundaries, but it is important to take a good look to see if you are avoiding opportunities in order to avoid the emotions that would come up.
- Criticise. We get busy fixing everything and everyone else. This is a form of projection.
- Dive into fantasy, movies, video games, internet etc. You can tell if you are using this instead of feeling emotions if you experience relief while doing it and stress once you stop.
EMOTIONS THAT TAKE OVER…
You are not condemned to act out every emotion that you feel, this leaves you feeling out of control of your emotions. “Acting it out” means that the emotional energy takes over your actions. This tends to happen when we don’t realise that we are feeling an emotion, are overwhelmed by it, or don’t know how to express it in a healthy way – either because we were not taught, because it’s been suppressed for long enough, or because there is too much pain associated with the emotion.
When you are aware of what you feel you can use be in control of how they come out, use it to your benefit, and make the choices that serve your greatest good. Rachel is a psychotherapist in Brookvale who can help you master your emotional life.
Counselling for emotional mastery can help you to recognise how you are acting out your emotions, and learn how to release them in a healthy way. You may have already experienced how they eventually come out in surprising ways when you resist them!
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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.