Tune into your Body to Release Emotions – What Resists Persists!

It seems that every day there is more information on how strongly interconnected the body and mind are. There are many new findings.  For example, the role the gut plays in our mental health.  And, the role that focusing on body and breath in mindfulness practice plays in improving day to day living.

Another  key area that is developing strongly in the psychotherapeutic and counselling fields, is learning to tune into our bodily sensations.  By doing this we recognise and therefore acknowledge and express our emotions.

As adults, we may spend time in therapy deconstructing the way we are raised.  When asked … “how are you?”, we have been told to be polite and we respond with “good, thank you”.  When really we feel sad, angry, annoyed or any one of many emotions.  We learn not to be honest with ourselves and others about how we feel.  We may also learn not to tell someone how we  ‘really’ feel for safety reasons. If as a child you felt that no one cared when you were upset, you might learn to hide it. As an adult therefore, you fear being dismissed or rejected.  We most likely have also built psychological defences.  For example when something is too hard to handle we repress it or we are in denial.

Particularly in the Western World we are not taught to notice the physiological feeling of emotions in our bodies, and then to express them.  Isn’t it interesting when you practice something like yoga or mindfulness that these emotions often rise to the surface from the unconscious, if you allow them to.

We are also gender programmed to deal with emotions in particular ways.  A classic example of this is men are generally comfortable with anger but not sadness, or women are comfortable with kindness and sadness, but not anger.

So one of the key goals in therapy is emotional congruence.  This means exploring what is going on in the body physiologically.  Essentially tuning into feelings in our body, and then expressing them through language.  If we allow a person to express sadness that they feel in their body, then their insides are matching their outsides – they feel relief, authenticity and others will see their authenticity, and empathise with how they feel.

As science keeps telling us “the body holds the score”.  If we don’t express emotions and we internalise them, they tend to play out as chronic illness or conditions such as back pain.  It is amazing how just the simple act of externalising painful emotions can relieve physical pain.