Emotional work is hard - and it’s so worth it

In the second week of my Come to Life course, we explored the theme of Hearing What Your Emotions are Telling You. I loved leading practices on the rich and oh-so-human topic of emotions.

As I ran the six-week course, I took the opportunity to hold myself accountable in these different areas of life, along with my participants. This particular week, it was so valuable to rediscover the emotional regulation practices and tools I shared, which I’d learned over the last few years throughout my training and inner work.

Someone pointed out on the call that emotional work is hard. So true. Yet that work is so necessary; our emotions have so much valuable information to give to us. They connect us with who we are and show us the truth underneath everything; all of the masking, reactionary emotions and patterns that we have. The protective behaviors, the limiting beliefs that aren't really helping us and don't really feel productive anymore, yet we don't know how to change them.

Talking to one of my wonderful breathwork class attendees

(captured and shared with permission)

It’s just the way things are that some emotions feel more welcome than others; at the same time, we can choose to welcome what feels difficult. When we feel anything challenging, such as sadness, jealousy, anger, frustration or regret, they just don't feel like glamorous emotions, shall we say. We want to skip to the joy, the gratitude and the love. If only it could be that easy (lol).

Our emotions live in the body, though, so we just can't do our own emotional work to the degree that it's really important to, if we can't first connect with our body. There's no shame in that if we can’t; we don’t have to judge ourselves for it if it feels like there is that level of disconnection. I really relate to that historically and I can still snap into that sometimes too; just resisting feeling.

All we have to do is start small and just be present to our breath. Our breath is an incredible anchor into the present moment and this presence to ourselves. To this loving awareness of our natural state, without judgment. It helps us to feel our emotions without attaching stories or meaning to them; making them wrong or right, shameful or not allowed. When we can do that, it's just so powerful to find the insights, freedom and opportunities on the other side of our pain.

Supporting people in doing the vital emotional work is so rewarding for me. I’ve known how it feels to struggle with connecting to your emotions. It also shows me where I can still change, and therefore still have growth available to me.

We don’t do this work to optimise or ‘fix’ ourselves. None of us are broken; we’re all just seeking that self-connection that helps us remember who we are. So ultimately, the purpose is to help us get to know and love ourselves even more. When we can do that, we then have more capacity to love others, too. (There’s a Ru Paul quote in there somewhere.)

We can’t bypass pain in the body, skipping to the ‘good’ bits, chasing emotions that feel more palatable or permitted. Because what we resist, persists; we have to feel to heal. These are phrases you may have heard in the healing world 100 times…and they’re repeatedly used for a reason. They are some of the most powerful truths in emotional work. When we ignore those parts within us asking to be felt (while trying to overthink our way to answers, getting stuck in our heads none the wiser and further stressed out), we ignore our biggest opportunities for healing and greater inner freedom.

And I don’t say this under any pretence of perfection or enlightenment; I still struggle with emotions sometimes too. Just because we know better, doesn’t always mean we do better. So if that’s you too, be kind to yourself. Even after years of doing personal development and somatic healing work, I still intellectualise my emotions sometimes. Trying to explain or justify them, even though I know they don’t need a reason to exist. I still sometimes notice that urge to stuff emotions down when they feel inconvenient or unwelcome.

And yet, when I just let myself feel emotions, it always feels SO much better. I promise you, it’s the resistance, or the thoughts we cling onto about our emotions, which make them feel worse than just being with them. It doesn’t mean you’re flawed or doing something wrong if it feels like you’re disconnected from your emotions. It doesn’t matter what we feel, there’s always something to learn from our pain and discomfort; and a powerful shift that occurs inside us when we soften into it.

How present are you feeling to your emotions today? Can you spare a few minutes to check in with yourself and just notice what you feel? Breathe into the centre of it and trust what arises.

Read more about my 1:1 somatic therapy services (online and in-person, South Manchester).

For those unfamiliar, I am a trained somatic practitioner,  with a level 3 qualification in person-centred counselling.