I want to cover a topic that I know some of you find confusing – emotionality. It’s a term I use a lot in my work, and you may be wondering what the heck is emotionality anyway? I’m gonna break it down for you and also explain how to deal with your emotions so you’re not choosing to put yourself in a state of suffering. To watch my video on this topic, click here:
Emotionality is every feeling and reaction that your body experiences.
This can include emotions, feelings, sensations, etc. As humans, we are meaning making machines, and what tends to happen is that the second we feel a sensation–like pain or fear–our mind wants to put that emotion into a box and find all the reasons why that emotion is true.
Your system is constantly trying to find a reason for feeling an emotion.
If you go into observation mode with this, you’ll realize that you do this all day long. The second you feel anxious, you immediately try to explain WHY you’re anxious. You spin crazy stories about how your feelings mean something or are due to this reason. Because you give these feelings a meaning, it creates more of the emotion. From there, you create a negative feedback loop that keeps you stuck feeling this way for reason X, Y, or Z. It can be a vicious cycle. It’s important to remember that:
You do not need to find a reason for your pain.
Your brain doesn’t feel safe just feeling without identifying, so it will try its hardest to find a reason for every feeling and emotion. Pain is a natural part of being human, but what changes it to a state of suffering is being attached to it, making up stories around it, and ruminating in it. When you’re in that state, you are constantly trying to find evidence of this story throughout your life.
Remember you are just a body with emotions.
Experiencing emotions 24/7 is part of being human. Ask yourself, “Can I just feel without creating a reason behind it?” Try it right now…take a deep breath and feel what you’re feeling. Don’t put it in a box, don’t give it meaning, just fully accept it.
When you accept your emotionality, you can heal it. When you try to change it, you are at war with it, and when you’re at war with any part of yourself, you cannot grow and transform.
Full acceptance of your emotionality on a regular basis leads to epic transformation.
Emotionality and food are so linked. Think back to when you were a kid, how often did you get a treat for being good? Were you ever bad and got sent to bed without dinner? So much emotionality is tied into food. This is why it’s normal to turn to food when you’re feeling anxious.
Instead, try to disconnect from that instinct. Start to use food for health, hunger, and pleasure when you want to. Emotions have a different operating system of how to feel and heal them. Being integrated into your body will help with this. Get into your body, and change your relationship to pain. If you need some help with this, try my ninja strategy to help you change your relationship to your emotionality:
Observing vs. identifying through breath.
When you start to feel overwhelmed by your emotions, take a deep breath, and observe what you are feeling without identifying with it. Here’s an example of how you would do this. Instead of thinking or saying, “I am anxious,” you would think/say, “I am experiencing anxious sensations right now.”
Observation allows you to heal so much easier. So, can you be the observer of your experience rather than trying to identify with it? Comment below and let me know how this one lands for you.
