In my learnings of Traditional Chinese Medicine, emotions move like the wind. They come and go. There is an ebb and flow to how feelings are created and felt.
An emotion will naturally last for only four minutes and if the emotion perpetuates after that time, it is because our mind is feeding it. When we feed an emotion, it evolves into larger, more intensified experiences.
Suddenly we can be lashing out in a direction that we recognize does not deserve this attention, just because our mind and emotional self is overwhelmed. Little things can set us off. We become distracted by the emotion and it colours our world view.
We have all experienced the waves of emotion as a pebble in the sand.
At some points of the day, we may be lucky enough to forget our perpetuated feelings because we are distracted and busy. Busyness effectively covers up our emotional experiences and we can feel like we are "fine", until a trigger occurs. And then deeply we go back into the emotional cycle.
The ONLY way through a perpetuated emotion is to FEEL IT. In whatever way your heart can be opened, feeling your emotional self will immediately start to empty out your large well of darkness into the light. Little by little, with true intention to feel the feelings, we can evolve this emotional self towards peacefulness. The triggers suddenly no longer effect you to the same degree and your wisdom about the situation allows you to understand that the external motivator is not you any more.
Changing your inside world will change your external world, this I promise
Grief is a natural stage of moving through life. We feel sadness to release our attachments, to let go. So many of my patients speak to me about feeling stuck within their experiences of grief and regret and bitterness. It is a fact that as we age, we lose more people. Because of death,the effects of chronic illness, due to distance and by our choices.
My advice around grief is to set regular times aside to honour our grief. Whether it is for 15 minutes once per day, or 30 minutes once per week, these times are so important for your wellbeing. Higher levels of healing can be created by taking back your power and choosing to participate in some sort of healing action during this honouring time.
Light a candle, say a prayer, write a letter that you can burn or bury after, create a collage, dance, sing, exercise....this honour becomes a time that you do not sacrifice, instead one that you look forward to.
It is your time to download, to empty out, to recognize your past and honour experiences as learning.
In every aspect, if you can bless the person(s) you grieve, you can eventually feel connected and more grounded to the deeper parts of your true strength.
Your strength is owed to your experiences and so you can choose to feel your emotions and then set the intention to see YOUR LIFE IS HAPPENING FOR YOU, not to you.
You can choose to see that this experience can bring you strength and wisdom.
Perhaps even allow you to realize empathy for others.
This I see as Emotional Detoxification.
Our physical body is constantly detoxing. It is in a continuous state of letting go of waste. Why would we not think that this needs also to occur at other levels of our body: mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
We can let go of outworn beliefs that no longer serve us so that we can choose our beliefs from our wisdoms.
We can let go of draining emotional baggage by allowing ourselves to entertain our emotions without judging them and stopping them. This is such an important part.
Our rational mind is so good at hiding our emotional development. We can rationalize why an emotion exists and why it shouldn't be anymore. We can shut down our growth by making it "not ok" to be feeling what might seem like a silly emotion.
"Why would I feel this, it happened so long ago"
or
"I don't want to continue burdening others with something that happened, why can't I stop thinking and talking about this feeling"
Dare to give yourself the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.
IT IS OK TO NOT BE OK
It is ok to feel the "silly, seemingly unrational" emotions. To give back the power it is holding on you. To not allow it the time and space inside of the front or back of your mind. Just dump it out. Take time to honour it. Even if you feel nothing, deadness, do not judge that either.
Allow this time to completely accept your self just as you are.
I often even use music to connect my mind to my feelings. Any song by Sarah McLachlan and I am immediately driven into my emotions hanging out below the surface.
Anytime you have a heart to heart with another and they offer you words from their heart, allow yourself to be fully present with the emotions it is creating in your self, without shutting it down in rationalization. Stop the arguing from your voice and your head and just feel.
The words from your safe person may or may not have resonance and the challenge is to stop talking and thinking and just allow your emotions to surface. By contemplating the emotional trigger, you will gain greater capacity to deal with the stressors in life.
You begin to recognize when an experience lacks an emotional response, you have healed that part of yourself. The action of meeting conflict with quiet contemplation and decisive action is a sign of your healed heart.
But as soon as you start arguing, defending, or deflecting, there is a trigger there to feel into.
This for me is a daily blessing I give myself as I clear out memories and feelings that I have stored in my body and mind. As it comes, I feel it and see if this needs more honour to fully let go. My writing is a large way that I process my own emotions. It allows me to reflect and respect, to bless and evolve. The more time I spend creating experiences by bringing my own emotions to the surface, the less I feel I need to respond defensively to what people say. I know my motivations more clearly and then I have more choice in what my actions look like.
This is a source of soul power, this honouring of your shadows in order to dissolve them into your light.
Thank you to all of the beautiful images captured by artists who are kind enough to share freely
love
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If these thoughts resonate with you, consider that beyond this, my only blog, I also have videos that you can find at
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Please share the love by loving yourself back to your authentic life
xoxo
Candice
NIHC.CA
The mind is a funny thing. I really enjoyed the read. Made me stop and think as I've been down this road...... (ha!)... still on it..... aren't we all. Detoxifying emotion caught my eye. We're all here to experience aren't we? Picked up a follower. Enjoyed.
Experiences and connections are so thrilling and make life so exciting ! Thank you for your support @stillwater :)
Woah! Absolutely stunning photos! Some of the most impressive and captivating I have seen in some time - a great choice you have selected!
That contrast between that calm peaceful beautiful green field and the brutal powerful tornado coming down is one of the best pictures I’ve seen!
Plus that wave is so colourful and calming, I find focusing on a image like this really can recenter the mind :)
That’s great you have focused on Chinese medicine, I have lived in China in the past and am going back in 2 weeks, my inability to speak Chinese limited my Chinese medicine use but this time I hope to use some more for certain issues.
I do feel having self acceptance is so important and being able to be free in our minds takes some time but is then the most rewarding gift in life - moving forward with positivity and understanding how to be happy :) life is amazing!
Love the post, pictures and positive healing message :) thanks!
I agree, these photos actually helped me to refine the title of my thoughts :)
Hopefully you can find someone who speaks English who practice TCM there in China...not sure if that is too large of a request. Chinese herbs are such great healing tools. I would be careful having anyone use acupuncture needles on me unless I knew they were all sterile and not re-used. Thank you for sharing your reply to my post !
That’s great to hear:)
Yes I’m sure some of the students will be able to help me with TCM, I really want to begin learning more about it all. For sure I will be careful if considering acupuncture, I have never had it before but I do have back pain and frequent headaches, so I really want to try acupuncture. I’m guess you have done it before?
I hate taking pharmaceutical pills when I need some pain relief, I just need some time to get it all sorted!:)
Thanks for the reply! Always great to get thinking about new things 😀
Look forward to seeing more of your posts :) 🌅
I do acupuncture daily in my medical practice. I have for the past 16 years. I continue to use this form of healing because it works...not for every one, but when it helps, the results are amazing ! It works especially well for pain conditions. Worth a try :)
Sarah McLachlan is pretty great. Awesome article, best I have read all day, resteemed.
Thank you for the resteem ! :)
It is my pleasure.
Deep stuff.... if you don't mind me asking, are you a psychologist?
I guess most of can relate to the experience of facing a trigger event and its aftermath obviously resulting from un-delt emotions. Although it sounds perfectly logical and makes perfect sense to process and deal with it all, but somehow my brain misses the memo where my personal life is concerned..... probably happens to all of us at point of time or the other.
On the other hand I have also found the emotional pain can lead to some seriously creative thinking.
As a Naturopathic Doctor, I have a large focus on health as including the emotions and mind. I treat the physical body mostly, but in some cases, people really just need help dealing with how their brain and emotions effect their health. I think it is difficult to deal with emotional baggage on your own. It is best to have someone who can mentor, guide or assist you to access the things that are creating pain. Once you get used to walking, talking and feeling at the same time with ease, you may just need a good friend around to help you process :)
Interesting. Where do you get to learn traditional Chinese medicine. I remembered different emotions affect different part of the body.
I studied 8 yrs of university. The second 4 yrs were in Toronto at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. That is where I studied Traditional Chinese Medicine. I have practiced the use of it every day for the past 16 years. It is a large part of my assessment tool box in my treatment plans for patients.
It is true that there is the belief in TCM that emotions affect organ systems...cool stuff for sure ! :) And often very relevant in determining cause for why some people hold in certain areas of their body.
Wow... I'm surprise they have this in Canada. There's a place near my home. I once check on their part time degree course.
The part time takes 7 years. http://www.singaporetcm.edu.sg/en/
Great article
I love the bit about an emotion lasting 4 minutes. So true, anxiety passes, but it feels like hell even in 10 seconds. I've been embracing the self feeding concept.
I enjoyed reading this today :)