All emotions are allowed, whether or not we honor or resist them. So can we honor them instead of resist them?
It's an honestly a practice that takes time. It's easy to slip into resisting an emotion or feeling like you have to do something about it when you feel it.
What if you don't?
What if observing it is already honoring it?
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0:00
Welcome back, it is your girl, Stefanie here. And I want to dive in to emotions. And I don't know about you. But for me in the past, I always felt like in order to honor an emotion, I needed to take an action. But the more I'm becoming in tune with my emotions, the more I realize, honoring an emotion doesn't necessarily require an active action, honoring an emotion can be as simple as allowing it instead of fighting it.
0:32
So what do I mean by that, allowing it instead of fighting it? When we have an emotion surface, sometimes we have a dialogue within ourselves of "I don't want to feel that that's not nice", and we're trying to avoid it. Well, that isn't honoring the emotion that is resisting the emotion. So what if instead of feeling like we have to do something about the way we feel, we just felt it. And I don't mean from a state of it taking over and identifying with the emotion as who we are, I mean, literally going into your body, and noticing the sensation that that emotion is producing in the body.
1:14
Over the years, and all the ways I've tried to manage my emotions, going into the body and feeling those sensations has been invaluable to me. Because I'm no longer resisting, I'm no longer fighting, I'm just allowing it to be. Without attaching an extra story to it. Without feeling I have to do something about it. Embracing that that is the particular emotion that's surfacing and allowing it to be there. And we really can't do this, if we're attached to it. I really want you to understand that as well.
1:48
If you are attached to your emotions right now and telling your stories about the emotions that you're feeling. That's okay. But I think in a really big way that's part of the human condition. It's something that when we learn to observe, instead of being identified with it and making a story, it opens up this new way of approaching our emotions. I'm sure you've heard this before, where if we can embrace that all emotions are allowed, then there's no reason to fight with an emotion that surfaces.
2:23
As I was prepping for this episode, today, I was looking back through one of my journals from that time period when I was leaving Mormonism, and I wanted to share something in there with you because it speaks to this in a way that I didn't know that I was beginning to practice it, then, but I was.
2:41
So it's December 9 2014: "I'm agitated today. Kurt left to hunt for this whole next week. And instead of being open to the feeling and allowing it to pass through me, I closed my arms around it and carried it away into an emotional reaction. That doesn't serve me. I'm learning that if I close my arms around an emotion, it gets tossed about inside me. And I don't know what to do about it. But when I'm open, and I allow the emotion to be present, and pass through, there's a sense of freedom that I'm now beginning to enjoy."
3:23
And that's the end of that journal entry. And I just, I wonder how many issues can be avoided in our lives, if we are able to be present with any emotion as it surfaces and observe it in a way that prevents a tailspin of a story being weaved together in our minds, that then disempower us or adds disempowering energy to whatever circumstance that we're dealing with? What if all emotions are okay? What if you could be friends with discomfort or anger, and be okay that it's surfaced and watch it and notice it, and then make a decision about how you want to handle it.
4:09
And this may go into alignment with emotional intelligence. There is a lot of topic on that, that I haven't really dove into, I'm busy elsewhere. But I wonder if this in and of itself, is what emotional intelligence is pointing towards. So what if emotional intelligence is actually the ability to allow and be present with an emotion by observing it? Instead of identifying with it and telling ourselvesstories about the way we feel?
4:42
I don't know about you, but I'm going to play with this more. This is something that when I marry it with tapping is very powerful, because tapping gives me a way to accept what is present in this moment, and actually help move the energy in our bodies. So coupling This idea of being able to allow and accept whatever emotion surfaces. And then for me, marrying that with tapping in such a way that I'm able to see how that emotion is actually serving me for whatever step is next in my life experience.
5:17
Thank you for joining me today. What are your thoughts about emotion? How do you handle it? Maybe there's something that already works for you. That you can experiment with more. Let me know. Hit me up, send me a message. I'm all ears. And remember, you've got this!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai