Becoming emotionally aware requires you to be present in your body. And a big challenge of being present in your body is that uncomfortable feelings can surface.
How can you be present with your body(emotionally aware) if you’re stuck in “story” in your head about life, love or any situation? Especially when something challenging comes up in your life, it’s easy to analyze it and intellectualize why it is so.
Stop Overthinking When You Are Challenged
Doing this puts your body in a tense state. This leaves no room for “expansive thinking”, and you start to “spin out” in your head. Life brings many challenges, and “spinning out” in your head in those challenging situations only creates more stress and drama. It’s time to slow down and connect to your feminine energy.
When faced with life challenges, stop or slow down, and be present with your feelings. Many of us run from our feelings. Do you? For most of us, it seems too scary to feel our uncomfortable feelings, so we stay stuck in our heads, convincing ourselves how horrible a certain situation is, even making it worse than it is.
Do you become over emotional? If you want to become emotionally aware, and lead your life from a place of love and empowerment, then catching yourself and recognizing when you’re “spinning out in your head” is vital.
Become aware of when you are shutting yourself off from feeling emotions that aren’t necessarily fun to feel. Don’t run from them. You can run, but you can’t hide from your emotions. They don’t go away. Do whatever it takes to relax your body so that your mind will become calmer. Doing guided meditations is a great first step. But becoming familiar with the different types of feelings is critically important to becoming emotionally aware.
Become Familiar With The Different Types of Feelings
To become emotionally aware you must understand the different types of emotions and feelings you can experience. There is a vast range of emotions and feelings. For simplicity and a better understanding of them, I categorize them into six types:
- SAD
- MAD
- GLAD
- FEAR
- SHAME
- NUMB
If you become familiar with these six words, you’ll be able to better identify and master your emotions. This is the first step in becoming emotionally aware… be familiar with the types.
The first three words rhyme, making them easier to remember. After that, remember fear, shame and numb. In moments when you feel uncomfortable, notice that discomfort and attempt to recognize what feeling or feelings are causing it.
You can make it simple by narrowing those feelings down to one or more of these six primary types of feelings. Getting in touch with these core feelings, acknowledging them and experiencing the feeling in your body is important. When dealt with constructively, they support your empowerment.
What is the difference between Feelings & Emotions?
For discussion purposes, I use the words “feelings” and “emotions” interchangeably, even though there is a difference. Feelings are a result of your emotions. Emotions are a construct of the mind. They come from how you perceive things. Emotions are triggered by our thought processes and belief systems.
Your emotions, in response to life and the world around you, form feelings. Feelings are not as long-lasting. They come and go. Emotions involve changing your beliefs, perceptions and how you think about things, therefore emotions can last longer and in a sense become chronic if you’re not willing to look at your beliefs and change your perceptions. Especially if these beliefs are limiting your full potential.
Feelings and emotions, whether they are good or bad, have a tremendous amount of life force and energy in them. Your feelings and emotions can create both good and bad things in your life depending upon how you navigate them, consciously or unconsciously. That’s why becoming emotionally aware is so important.
Being Emotionally Aware Requires You To Feel Past Numbness
Numb isn’t actually a feeling. I included it because it’s part of how we cope in stressful situations. When you are numb, you don’t feel anything. You are walled off from your body, power, and aliveness. Though it is, in a sense, void of feeling, I include it as a feeling in the list. Of these six types of feelings, only one is good. The rest are uncomfortable feelings. No wonder we don’t want to feel our feelings!
As a culture, we have become fine artisans of avoiding our uncomfortable feelings. Our society is set up to support not feeling our feelings. In life, uncomfortable feelings arise. It is normal. And it’s natural. However, starting when we were children, most of us weren’t allowed to, nor did we learn how to, feel our feelings in a productive way.
That is why people turn to things like:
- Overeating
- Overdrinking
- Overworking
- Over-shopping
- Over sexing
- Over cleaning
- Over gambling
- What’s yours?
We all have these traits. They’re our mechanisms to quell or sooth uncomfortable feelings.
Don’t Stay Shut Off From Your Feelings
You can stay up in your head all your life and not know it. You can let your thoughts and emotions control you instead of you controlling them. If you want to empower yourself and lead your life from a place of love, then you need tools to manage uncomfortable feelings. You need to become emotionally aware. You need to know how to take care of yourself by understanding energy.
Otherwise, you’ll continue to stay shut off from your body through avoiding your feelings, building armor or creating a fortress to keep you from the joy and juiciness everyday life has to offer. Your relationships will suffer and you’ll feel a lack of connection with others. You’ll miss out on experiencing the full depth of sensual pleasure you are capable of as a woman.
Finding the joy and sensual juiciness of everyday life and in intimate relationships is where the gold is! This armor also hinders overall good health, both physically and emotionally. Becoming emotionally aware is critically important.
We learn to disconnect from our feelings as children.
When we were children and got upset, many of us were told, “Don’t feel bad.” Have you ever noticed a parent saying that to a child? Or have you said that to your own child, a friend or your partner? It is from a place of compassion that we don’t want our loved ones to feel bad.
However, allowing them to feel their feelings is a better way to support them. Helping them feel their uncomfortable feelings and not making them wrong is a transformational experience that can help others and yourself.
Early in life, we learn to stuff or shut off our bad feelings. We received messages that bad feelings were just that, bad. In truth, bad feelings are guideposts to help us understand ourselves, and a way for us to open to love. In life, uncomfortable feelings will arise.
It is normal. It is natural. It’s taken me many years to not buy into my programming and to manage these feelings in a positive way. I experienced them so intensely; I had a bit of a drama queen in me. Instead of feeling the feeling, I would overreact, making a mountain out of a molehill.
Drama Queen Or Not… Uncomfortable Feelings Are Natural!
Whether you are a drama queen or not, uncomfortable feelings are natural. It’s important to know how to manage them in a productive way. Otherwise, you become lifeless, resentful, depressed or shutdown. You develop chronic illnesses or gain weight. Maybe you start feeling stuck in your life. And then you become disconnected from your inner guidance.
You don’t have to live that way. There is a better way. Understanding, honoring and productively dealing with your uncomfortable feelings is the better way. Learning how to take care of yourself emotionally is a must. If you don’t, these feelings become fodder for making you feel lifeless. Having tools to navigate your uncomfortable feelings is necessary if you want to feel love in your heart and joy in your life.
Give Yourself Permission To Feel
The first tool is to allow the feelings. Don’t make them wrong. Fear of “feeling the feeling” or being judgmental about the feeling will magnify it and make it worse. Do you deny your uncomfortable feeling by saying to yourself, “I shouldn’t feel this way”?
We haven’t learned how to honor our feelings. That’s why we often keep these feelings bottled up inside. Think of a time when you’ve felt bad and someone asked you, “What’s wrong?” Was your response, “I’m fine”? You were stuffing the feeling. The statement “I’m fine” is usually a sign that you are walking down the road towards lifelessness in your body.
It is better out than in with these uncomfortable feelings. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to hold your feelings inside, and over time, they will rob you of your aliveness. They literally get stuck inside your body.
The trick is to let your feelings out in a way that will enhance your life and not sabotage it. This will create deeper connections with others. It’ll open your heart instead of putting it on a chopping block.
Understand, uncomfortable feelings don’t go away by avoiding them or keeping them under control. Instead, they’ll come out sideways in what I call the “Three D’s:” Disease, Drama, and Depression. You could even add Disaster.
Feeling Your Feelings Will Transform Them
If you’re willing to become emotionally aware by feeling your feelings and being present with them, you can transform them. Under an uncomfortable feeling is valuable information for you, information that’ll empower you. When you bring more consciousness to your feelings, they can guide you in a positive way to create positive outcomes in your life.
If you avoid your feelings, they’ll run your life in unconscious ways, create disharmony, and sabotage your relationships, happiness, and general well-being.
Feelings arise for valid reasons. It is important to acknowledge them and know how to take care of yourself when they arise. They’re a powerful force and source of energy in your body that, when managed in a productive way, can immediately bring more vitality into your body.
Imagine all the feelings you have pushed down, bottled up or put a lid on. Imagine how much energy your body wastes to keep them inside. Repressed feelings kill us over time. They rob us of our life force. They disempower us. Imagine letting them rise to the surface instead of pushing them down. Give them your undivided attention, presence and compassion. Give them a heart-centered voice. And learn to really love yourself.
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I’m Anna-Thea an author and Divine Feminine Educator. If this article resonated with you and you’d like to learn more about becoming emotionally aware and emotionally empowered, check out 4 Steps To Process Your Powerful Emotions and my other online courses.
Much love,
Anna-Thea
This article was originally published on my site at: https://annathea.org/
If you would like to see the original article please visit: https://annathea.org/how-to-become-emotionally-aware
