“One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.”
~ John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
In the wake of mental health awareness day recently, I’d like to share the 2nd core factor which I believe plays a key part in balanced health & wellness…our emotions.
Often seen as a sign of weakness due to our social conditioning, many of us have learnt to suppress our deepest emotions, myself included. However, I’ve learnt the hard way, that keeping this depth of emotion in, holding on to it & ruminating over & over can & does contribute to physical symptoms in illness & disease.
With several decades of research in many fields to back this up now, from endocrinology, psychology & medicine to sociology & energy psychology, the evidence is there…emotions are “a positive or negative experience that is often associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity, producing different physiological, behavioural and cognitive changes.”
This research shows outcomes such as breast cancer patients needing fewer doctor visits for related problems, just by sharing their feelings; HIV patients seeing an improvement in infection-fighting T cells by writing about their concerns; & energy psychology showing a direct link with symptom onset & holding onto emotional hurts. There is also research proving links between how individuals respond to perceived negative emotions & heart attack risk.
There is a caveat in all this…emotions are actually neither good or bad & we need all of them, because they aid in our overall survival. They are a necessary & vital part of our existence in fact. It’s how we process, respond & resolve them which is key however.
What’s the answer then?
Basically, it’s ok to experience & express emotions such as fear, anger, disgust, sadness etc. It’s the holding on to them & what we do with them after the event has passed which provoked them in the first place, which is key.
So here are a few ideas for helping to release, let go & free yourself up:
- Journalling, daily.
- Time in nature regularly.
- Regular exercise you enjoy.
- 10% of your day outdoors…or 2.24 hours outside, in small increments.
- Meditation, guided is best to start with.
- Increase water intake, reduce alcohol, caffeinated, fizzy & sugary drinks.
- Increase fresh whole foods, reduce packaged & ready meal type fast foods.
- Look into EFT (aka tapping)…it’s amazing!
- Establish a regular sleep routine.
- Have a #notech90 mins before bed.