Emotional Healing: What You Don't Feel, Runs You

For many people when faced with a cancer diagnosis (or any sort of physical challenge), emotional healing tends to be one of those things that gets shelved for another time in favour of diet, cleanses, supplements, or even meditation. It can feel either too abstract; too scary; too big a can of worms to open; or that it’s simply irrelevant and not a priority. However our emotional health is intimately connected to our physical and mental health, and is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be truly healthy.

To understand why emotional healing plays such a critical role in restoring physical health, it’s helpful to understand exactly what emotions are. Simply put, an emotion is an energetic vibration, or energy in motion. The word itself comes from the Latin verb ‘to move’. Like electricity, emotions flow through our bodies just as electricity flows through a wire. They are always moving. You can't see them, but you can feel their charge and physical effects. 

The Mind-Body Connection

There is no question that the mind and the body are connected. Our thoughts and emotions influence our physical body. Our beliefs lead us to feel emotions, and emotions cause physical sensations in our body. They cause shifts in hormones and alter the chemistry of our body’s cells. For example, your face may flush when you feel embarrassed; your blood pressure rises when you feel angry; you feel butterflies in your stomach when you’re nervous, or you may feel like you need to dash to the toilet if you’re scared or anxious, aka scared shitless!

It's well known that emotions such as joy, happiness, optimism, and love flood the body with hormones that boost immune function. We also know that pessimism, depression, worry and anger do the opposite, flooding the body with hormones that contribute to an increased risk of cancer and other chronic illnesses. 

Emotions are neither good nor bad, regardless of their negative or positive association. Anger might just be the emotion that motivates you to do something that will get you out of a bad situation. Fear can stop you from doing something dangerous that might put you or someone else at risk. All emotions are valid. Problems begin to arise however, when we ruminate and get lost in the stories that keep us emotionally activated, or if emotions are suppressed and denied. 

What You Don’t Feel Runs You

It’s common to detach, distract or alter our mood to avoid or escape fear and other undesirable emotions such as anxiety or sadness rather than feel them when they show up. Some common ways we do this are with drugs and alcohol, food, sex, shopping, changing the subject, fighting back tears, or keeping busy. While suppressing emotions can be a survival mechanism that protects and allows us to continue to function, it is to our detriment. Over time, emotional suppression affects every aspect of our life. 

If we interrupt or restrict that energetic vibration by avoiding, denying or distracting ourselves, the emotion is not fully experienced, and the energy gets stored in the body at a cellular level. If emotions are continuously suppressed, over time that unexpressed emotional energy builds up with nowhere to go. This can lead to addictive behaviour as well as stress, agitation, frustration, anxiety or depression. We become reactive, like an emotional pressure cooker that lets off sharp bursts of steam in the form of sarcasm, snide remarks or angry outbursts when triggered; the person who screams at the toaster if the toast burns, or loses their cool if someone cuts them off in traffic. 

Most of the time however, the trigger is never the cause. It’s not the toaster, or the other driver. It is the build up of suppressed emotions that can no longer be held inside, resulting in an explosion of emotional energy, often followed by guilt and a vow to stay in control and ‘put a lid on it’. The emotions continue to build up, and the cycle continues. 

The overall net effect of suppressed emotions is muscle tension, cellular dysfunction, and dis-ease in the body. For as long as they remain suppressed, they can continue to trigger and influence us, impacting not just our physical health, but also our relationships and causing us to overreact to innocent remarks and misinterpret behaviour. 

In addition, suppressing strong emotions such as fear and sadness uses up a lot of our body’s energy reserves that might otherwise be used for healing. If we can learn to sit, feel, and be with the emotions we’d rather avoid, such as fear and sadness, we give that emotional energy an opportunity to discharge, which creates space for healing. 

You Need To Feel It To Heal It

One way that we can do this is with Core Clearing Breathwork, a heart-centred process that helps you heal any unresolved trauma and emotional pain that may be contributing to your physical dis-ease, and manifesting as stress or anxiety, whilst also allowing you to access your heart’s intelligence for guidance with moving forward. 

During the core clearing, you are guided through a process of witnessing the stories you tell yourself about a challenging situation, and feeling into the body sensations and emotions that arise in order to facilitate their completion, thus allowing you to finally heal. It is a gentle process that  can also help you to dissolve the subconscious blocks that may be keeping you stuck and preventing you from moving forwards in life.

Keen to know more about how Core Clearing Breathwork can help you? Use this link to book a free consultation with me today.