PHYSICAL VS EMOTIONAL WELL BEING
When I think about feelings and emotions these days I find it difficult to do it in isolation from ones physical health. The article is about The Secret Language of Feelings, a secret that has been a secret too long in my opinion!
When we talk about improving our health usually four things come to mind; lose weight, healthier eating, quit smoking and exercise more.
When we talk about health usually we relate to our physical body and what we can physically do to change or improve it. Often we forget to consider the most important component which is our emotional health. Although many of us are much more focussed on our overall well being than ever before (and both men and women) many are unaware that if we focus on the physical and ignore the emotional we are doomed to failure. When our emotional body is healthy, our physical body can achieve greater things and reach higher goals. It is also so much easier to embrace change when the two are in sync.
So how do our emotions get in the way? When a trigger (either internal or external) sets you off it releases a negative emotion and a thought you don’t like. Often this happens subconsciously, without your awareness, but your mind decides that it does not want to go to those feelings or think those thought so it takes your mind to a safe place, a place where you will instantly feel good. This is the place you eat too much, drink too much, smoke, withdraw from life, avoid situations etc. When you are in this safe place the emotions around the trigger become suppressed and you distract yourself for a period of time until you have eaten the biscuit, or finished the glass or wine or smoked the cigarette.
The problem is that now you are creating another problem with the too much behaviour which manifests itself into feelings of guilt, frustration, powerlessness. It’s a little like a climbing onto an emotional merry go round and then being unable to get off.
What we think is what we get, right? So, if we think healthy, we can be healthy. The more positive our thought patterns, the less stress on our body. The less stress on our body, the more easily we can create and sustain healthy habits. We can also sleep better, attract more rewarding relationships and achieve goals at work. If it really is that simple why are we not doing this?
SELF SABBOTAGE
There is a littler word called self-sabotage that comes into the equation that many of you will be familiar with. Take a typical weight loss scenario – we start with great intentions, we get our routine down pat, jump out of bed in the morning, go for a walk/run, eat a healthy breakfast, focussed, energised, ready to embrace the day. This continues for a week or so until life gets in the way. Then life gets busy, we are faced with challenges, things go wrong, we start eating a bit more and missing a morning session. Our sleep is impacted, our energy declines and our positive thoughts are replaced with doubts (“I’ll never be able to lose this weight, I’m not good enough”) or limiting beliefs (“I’ll always be overweight .”). Soon our resiliency becomes less resilient as we listen to that negative inner critique. Over time our goals that were once so strong are now on a downward spiral.
The first step is to understand the language of emotions and to realise that with that learning comes empowerment. All feelings are good and those feelings are the way your body and mind communicate with each other. At a very simple level, when we’re sad, we’ve lost something that we valued. When we feel inadequate, we’re afraid we won’t be loved or safe, or we are not good enough. Even anger is a good emotion. Anger means something has happened that’s not fair.
When we stop avoiding or distracting ourselves from our emotions, we start to listen. What are our emotions telling us and what action do we need to take? When we do this we start to understand the secret language of feelings.
Take the oil light in a car. Imagine you are driving along and the oil light goes. You have three choices. You can ignore it, you can decided you will get it looked at later or you can deal with it immediately by taking it into a garage to have it fixed. So if you think about your feelings like the oil light. You can deal with the feelings straight away, you can put it off until later or you ignore. Back to the car scenario, imagine now that you decide to ignore the oil light even thought you know that the car will eventually break down and the engine will seize up. Using that same analogy consider what happens when you constantly ignore your feelings.
UNDERSTANDING THE ROOT CAUSE
But it’s not easy to change. It’s true, people are often more comfortable with the fears they know then the fears they don’t know. But then ask yourself the question, if I had a choice, if I could choose to live without this fear, anger, and frustration would I choose that? Because the subconscious mind does not know the difference between real and imagined that choice can become a reality. You feel frustrated and angry but you really want to feel calm, relaxed, confidence and grounded – hypnosis can help you do that.
Hypnosis can change the way you respond to a situation, as long as you want that, recognising that you cannot be made to do anything your don’t want to do. Hypnosis is simply a natural, focused state of attention and all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, meaning you do it to yourself.
Hypnosis won’t change the past, but it can help reveal the misperceptions and limiting beliefs that stop you from living a fulfilling life. When you truly recognise that all feelings are good and that it’s simply a message from your brain reminding you to take some action it puts you back in the drivers seat. Then you realise that the secret language of feelings is no longer a secret
For more information on how I can help you contact me at elaine@mindovermattertherapy.com.au and watch my youtube video on Overcoming Limiting Beliefs here.