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Most of us never get taught how to deal with our emotions. What we usually do is repress, suppress, escape, and project our emotions. And this is where the problems start.
Eventually, we have so much emotional pressure accumulated that we don’t want to take it any longer. We start seeking emotional healing.
If you are reading this right now, I assume that you are at this stage. It might be a particular event, like a breakup, or the collection of many such events you are suffering from.
Whichever it is, you have suffered enough and you are ready to liberate yourself from your emotional chokehold.
What you will discover in this article is everything you’ll ever need for your emotional healing. But you really have to want it. Others can explain to you what to do, but in the end, you’re the one who needs to implement it.
You might wonder why you wouldn’t want to free yourself. Well, some part inside us is attached to all the suffering. We are used to it and many of us rather have the certainty of the suffering we know, than the uncertainty of the freedom we don’t know.
You have to be willing to surrender and to let go. But when you are, you will discover something beautiful.
No one is holding you to your suffering.
Usually, we try to think our way out of emotions, but if you have ever tried this, you know that this doesn’t work.
The next thing we try is to engage in all kinds of elaborate schemes to avoid feeling our emotions. This is not sustainable either as suppressing your emotions can have a variety of negative effects on your mental and physical health.
This begs the question, is there not an elegant way to let go of negative emotions so that they don’t control our lives?
The answer is yes, and it doesn’t even need to be as difficult as we’d like to think.
The hallmark of truth is simplicity.
To live a happy life, you have to understand yourself. But that doesn’t mean that you need to study psychology or philosophy.
The only thing that is necessary is awareness.
Awareness is Healing
Many spiritual teachings claim that awareness in and of itself is healing. Meaning that when you have become aware of something, you have initiated the emotional healing process.
By diligently shining the light of awareness on all areas of your life, you will not only gain self-understanding but you’ll gradually liberate yourself from negative emotions.
But why is awareness healing?
The answer is quite simple. Awareness is healing because you cannot be what you are aware of.
Suffering arises when you have identified with something.
So when you say, “I am depressed,” you have identified with your depression. But technically that’s not true. You are not your depression. A more accurate way to say it would be, “I experience depression.”
The same is true for limiting beliefs.
Limiting beliefs can inhibit the joy and fulfillment you experience in your life. But they only control you so long as you are identified with them. So when you are aware of a belief, you are no longer identified with this belief.
By being aware of limiting beliefs, destructive emotional patterns, and identities and accepting them as they are, you are letting them go.
Mind you, I didn’t say suppress them as non-existent. All these mental constructs are not what you are, but to transcend them you have to accept them the way they are.
It might not be easy, but it is simple.
Increase your awareness and life will take care of itself. Just by increasing your awareness, your emotional healing will advance faster than you could’ve ever imagined.
Is Emotional Healing Work Really Necessary?
If you have started researching emotional healing processes, you might have encountered trauma work, shadow work, inner child work, psychotherapy, and other healing modalities.
Now you might have wondered, “Is this all really necessary?”
Well, these healing modalities do work and if there is something stuck inside you that needs to be uncovered, it can be useful to have these tools and/or a professional to help you with this.
However, to heal your past it’s not necessary to dive deeply into the cow dung of your past, and then categorize and label each pile of dung.
One of the world’s most recognized experts on emotional trauma, Gabor Maté, says the following about healing trauma:
“The essence of trauma is a disconnect from the self. Therefore the essence of healing is not just uncovering one’s past, but reconnecting with oneself in the present.”
All your past trauma, wounds, limiting beliefs, destructive emotional patterns are revealing themselves to you in every present moment in the form of emotions, feelings, moods, and sensations.
Hence, all you have to do to sever the link with all the unconscious stuff is to observe (be aware of) the emotions, feelings, moods, and sensations.
Observation or awareness is all that is needed for healing.
Again, inner healing modalities do work, but at some point, you’ll have to ask yourself, “When will my healing journey be done?”
The answer is that you’ll never be done as long as you’ve identified with the part that believes it needs healing. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do the other healing work. Don’t just take my word for it, try everything you want to try.
But keep in mind, there will always be more cow dung to pile, categorize, and label.
So this part – the part that believes it needs healing – too, start observing it.
Then you are truly healing because you are letting go of the identity that needs healing.
And when you have let go that part, who is left to heal?
4 Step Emotional Healing Process
If you want emotional healing, you have to be willing to actually feel your emotions. Don’t think or talk about them, don’t suppress or project them, but feel them.
Once again, what you need here is awareness.
Following this simple 4 step process will free you from identification with your negative emotions and thoughts so that your true core will shine through.
Now keep in mind that this is not a passive process. You really have to be willing to be with all your emotions, feelings, sensations, moods, etc.
But when you are, prepare for magic to happen.
Instead of re-acting to what life throws at you, you’ll realize that you’re free to perceive the situation in any way you want. And by shifting your perspective, you can choose the action that feels most aligned with yourself.
1. Get in touch with your negative emotions
The first step to initiate the emotional healing process is to realize that the negative emotions are there. No more suppression, repression, projection, and escapism.
As long as you try to avoid your negative emotions, they will run the course of your life and create a whole bunch of problems.
Whenever you feel some negative emotion creep in, be aware of it.
If you have avoided your emotions for a long time, it might take some time to become sensitive to them. Yet, if you stick with it, you’ll recognize your emotions as soon as they arise.
2. See that the emotions are inside you
The next step is to accept that the emotions are inside you, not out there. No one else is responsible for how you feel.
When you project your negative emotions onto others, you’re giving up your responsibility.
But to be free from the suffering of negative emotions, you have to realize that your emotions are your responsibility and no one else’s.
It’s easier to blame others for negative emotions. But taking responsibility for your emotions is the only way to heal emotionally. Yet it’s also empowering because you’ll reclaim sovereignty over your inner space.
3. Observe and feel the emotions
This step is what trips people up. But really, it’s the easiest step. All you have to do is to observe the emotion.
Feel the feelings and sensations going on in your body.
It may help to disidentify from the emotion by realizing that you are not the emotion, you have the emotion.
Be completely aware of everything associated with the emotion. And most of all don’t try to change the emotion. Just let it be as it is.
By doing so, the emotion is running its own course and soon the energy behind it will run out. This will be followed by a subtle feeling of lightness and relief.
Depending on the amount of suppressed energy behind an emotion, a negative emotion can be let go in seconds, minutes, hours, or days.
No matter how long it takes, by sticking with surrendering to the negative emotion, its energy will run out.
That’s emotional healing.
4. Realize that no one else needs to change
After you have dealt with the emotion at hand, reassess the context of the emotion. You can now see how your perception of the situation is completely different.
This shows that no one else needs to change, you have to let go of the negative emotion so that your perception changes.
As long as we hold on to the belief that others around us need to change so we can feel good, we are unfree. That way we will always seek more emotional healing processes.
We have tied our happiness to the behavior of others, which we can never control. But now you have taken the first step to untie yourself.
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If you want a simple and profoundly effective emotional healing process, it’s this one.
Bringing awareness to my inner world in this way has improved my well-being significantly and it can do the same for you.
Follow these 4 steps whenever a negative emotion is triggered and you will witness your life transform.
You’ll no longer identify with your negative emotions, people will no longer push you around, your relationships will improve, and your self-understanding will reach new heights.
Luka
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