FEEL IT ALL AND BE FREE
This week in our Self-Care Tuesday group we talked about the places we go when we feel wronged.
Oftentimes this means that we are holding onto anger and judgment, and when we hold onto them and do not allow ourselves to feel, can make us sick.
Feel your feelings
In order to metabolize feelings including anger you need to allow yourself to feel and breathe. let the feeling move through you and give yourself space to directly experience it. The key is not to express it or repress it and rather let yourself feel.
Are you a stuffer?
As women we often stuff our feelings. Broadly speaking, women are not supposed to get angry, while men are not supposed to express fear. When you stuff your feelings, they can tend to leak out in sideways comments or digs to your partner or even to your Rare child. Unmetabolized feelings show up as passive aggressive behaviors which may often be unkind and you might say things that you don’t mean. It’s as if you are cooking pasta and the heat is turned up too high which eventually causes the water to boil over.
Your feelings make sense
When your feelings show up, be gentle with yourself, allow yourself to feel and validate whatever is arising. By doing this, you are honoring your direct experience and your feelings can move through. If you try to skip over your feelings by saying things like, “Oh, I’m not mad, I’m just frustrated.”
Sometimes, the conditioning of your family or faith might influence you to "let it go" when you actually need to feel and communicate directly rather than dismiss your feelings. Doing this is sometimes called a “spiritual bypass.”
When you bypass your feelings, they often come back to bite you in the bottom.
A Practice to Support You – Here are the steps
When feelings arise, notice them
Feel the sensations that are arising in your body
Take a few deep breaths
Name your experience
Pause and take some time for yourself
Return when you are calm and communicate clearly
Coming Up Next Week: The Places We Go to Self-Assess
Most of us know about pride and humility…but hubris isn’t a word that is commonly used. When we realize the differences these words bring to our lives, we can better gauge ourselves, the way the words fit into our lives, and how curiosity allows us to have clarity about what is actually happening for us. Come with curiosity to see how we can be more gentle in our self-assessment, perhaps even finding more love for ourselves.
Please Join Us
You may not realize how much you need the Angel Aid community until you find it.
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We look forward to being with you soon.
