Episode Intro
The Emotions We Carry
Asil
When you wake up, when you walk through your daily life, what is the predominant emotion you hold? Are you truly neutral? Or is there a tendency for sadness? Is there a tendency for anger? Is there a tendency for numbness? Is there a tendency for depression?
Is there a tendency for happiness? Or is the general sense of well-being or being content rather a rare thing that happens in your life?
The truth is, many of us have the full spectrum of emotions, and all of these emotions are part of life. Yet emotions that have not been felt, emotions that we have carried from our childhood, from difficult experience of life in the past, will predominantly make themselves visible in our day-to-day life experiences. Emotions unfelt want to be felt.
When Emotions Take Over
Asil
And as long as they're not felt, they will just accumulate. They become louder and louder. And occasionally, you may experience that you have breaking points where that emotion will just rush through.
Potentially in an unconscious moment, all that anger will be unleashed all at once. All that sadness will move through like a gushing river.
Occasionally, we have no control over these emotions taking over us entirely, as they have built up for so long, as they have not been felt for so long, suppressed for so long, until this buildup is so strong that we truly have no chance of control. No willpower left to manage our emotions. And it is truly not the emotion's fault at all.
And it is truly not your fault for not having enough willpower or energy left to manage or to control these emergent emotions.
It is merely a symptom of these emotions not having been given the stage to be felt, given the space, the container to be felt.
All of us have uncried tears. All of us have unexpressed anger. Some of us unexpressed rage. Some of us deep grief.
Some of us, a loss that cannot be expressed even in the heaviest emotions available to humans.
Some of us depression and numbness in a result of our inability to live the life that we want to live, in our inability to feel the emotions that we need to feel, as the emotions have now come to a level of
great discomfort and great intensity that even the idea of feeling that emotion has become a daunting, a fearful experience.
Where do we go? What do we do? When you or many others have come to this place
of trying to manage a day-to-day life, of trying to manage their internal storms brewing?
Is there a doctor for that? Is there a pill for that? And if so, how well does it work?
It may work for some time. It may suppress, it may manage, it may cope. Yet, for how long? And at what cost to yourself and to your wellbeing and to your life?
The Need for Safe Emotional Space
Asil
Many of us have walked this life with this kind of internal turmoil. The unexpressed emotions come through in unexpected moments, in unexpected ways, in relations, in ways we have not consciously chosen or wanted. We say things we did not mean. We do things we did not intend.
Toxicity oozes out of us as a result of these emotions not being felt, seen, or expressed. Yet what is a safe environment? What is a safe place for these emotions to come through? Where can we see and hold or be held as we feel these emotions?
In society, there used to be environments in which a tribe, a community would gather to make space for some of those emotions to come through, especially grief or loss, especially anger, especially sadness. Tears were welcomed so that they would not accumulate and create disease or sickness.
And here we are in a place in our lives, in a place within society, a demanding society with very little space for you to feel what you may need to feel, for you to have these experiences of your emotions in a safe, in a loving environment, for you to accept that you are an emotional being.
For you to know that your emotions are okay.
That in a world that loves mental capacity, mental sharpness, productivity and rationalization, logic at all costs,
emotions have been deemed, determined, and valued as less: disturbances, distractions.
Control your emotions, they said.
It is possible that others are impacted by the expression of emotion of another person.
And the more unexpressed emotions are within each individual, the more these emotions come through in unconscious, in unexpected ways, the more uncomfortable it becomes for others to witness. As it is truly unexpected, the space is not truly held for this emotion to come through.
Turning Toward Yourself
Asil
So what is the answer? Where does one turn to?
We will first start for you to turn to yourself. For you to give slightly more space for the emotional bandwidth, the emotional capacity for some of these emotions to rise, to be seen, to be held, and to be loved.
This is the first step. How much space do you give yourself? How much do you receive yourself? How much do you hold yourself? How much acceptance and compassion is there for you and your emotional landscape?
This is the first step, as there are many more.
There are ways to create environments with other individuals, with communities where emotions can be explored. There are ways for you to release the energy held in emotions unexpressed so that they do not exit out of you unconsciously. An energy that can be toxic, an energy that can be hurtful as it moves through you in uncontrolled and unconscious ways.
Yet the first practice is with yourself. The first practice is in solitude, in the expansion of your being.
So that there is a space created within you, around you for these emotions to emerge, to be seen. That does not mean we will just wildly go into expressing these emotions. We will just create a little bit more space for them to emerge, for them to be held, for us not to resist and push against and suppress these emotions, try to bury them so that we are functional.
And this may be very uncomfortable for you.
The mind may seek immediate distractions. Let's do this, let's do that, and deliver significant judgments onto the process and onto yourself.
Disturbing or distracting thoughts.
Yet what prevails is your determination, your will to give yourself that space.
The Parts That Hold the Past
Asil
All of us have many parts of our being. Parts that have developed over time in experiences challenging, in experiences unresolved, in experiences of the past. A part of our consciousness, a part of our awareness remained in that experience. The energy of that experience has not been expressed. The emotion of that experience remained like a fragment in our consciousness.
And all these different parts that are present within our being determine who we are, how we act, and how we see life. Some parts will take over in moments unexpected. Some parts will be so demanding, so strong, that we may not even have any recollection of what happened in that moment.
Beyond control. A part has taken over, driving an unexpressed emotion.
Beginning with Compassion
Asil
We start simple.
We start with ease. We start with compassion. We start with giving ourselves a present moment of relief. Any accumulated energy, any accumulated emotion will slowly adjust.
It may not be the full resolution of this unexpressed emotion or of the trauma of the past or the resolution of that part of your being. Yet it will be a start. It will be a beginning to a new life, to a new balance within your heart, your emotional center.
Becoming a Pillar of Balance
Asil
Emotionally regulated, emotionally aligned humans are pleasant to be around. They exude a natural peace. They exude a natural alignment, a groundedness, a stability. The frequency that is emitted by these individuals is contagious.
The calm of the heart of an individual that has found peace is truly affecting everyone around them.
And on occasion, individuals with dysregulated or turbulent inner worlds will seek out these peaceful pillars of humans
to receive a bit of that peace into their being, into their life.
And you hold the possibility to become such a pillar of balance, to become such a pillar of alignment and wellbeing.
You hold that power to have a strong, aligned internal inner world, an emotionally aligned center of being, a foundation of alignment.
The first step is becoming present and creating that space for your emotional landscape to bring movement of energy into your being. Through simple breath and simple presencing, already transforming the stagnant and stuck energies of the emotions unexpressed of the past.