Hello love,
This video is about the body and that it doesn’t lie. What I’m talking about here is that when our body feels pain, tension, tightness, it’s not lying there is something deeper going on. And especially if you are an emotional eater this is really important to become aware of our body.
These books have a bit more insight: one is called the “Body Never Lies” and “The Drama of the Gifted Child” by Alice Miller. Alice Miller was a psychologist and psychoanalyst was Germany and wrote these books over 50 years ago. She started noticing with clients that whenever they had an emotional issue they would have certain patterns in their bodies and pains. Whatever traumas were unresolved they would have a corresponding area of the body that held onto that pain.
This is now proven by science. In the book “The Body Keeps the Score” there is a lot of evidence to show that unresolved traumas and emotions show up in the body creating pain. I know for me personally that whenever I have stuck emotions I can feel it in my body. Certain parts of me feel really tight or in pain. For example, anxiety in your stomach, or your chest is tight or you’re hunched over contracted. I’ve also heard from so many women feeling being really stuffed and not knowing what to do to release this held in emotion.
I want to share a few things that are happening so when we go through a trauma. A trauma is an unresolved emotion our body holds onto. We do this because we’re usually conditioned to not process an emotion or let it come to completion or really feel it. Most of us are taught to avoid emotions or suppress it because it is very painful or we perceive it to be really painful to feel. Maybe our parents felt that way and their parents and it goes on and on.
Talk Therapy
When we have an emotion or are feeling this tension in our body and we go to talk therapy we’re talking in circles because the trauma or emotion lives in our body. So when we are in our mind talking about it we’re not being with the trauma and giving it the compassion it needs. We might be really aware of our issues but we need to create a sense of physical safety for our body.
What I have noticed for me is that I did a lot of talk therapy but I never felt safe and I had to start creating these “safeties” in my life. I started off with having more structure and routines and starting to nourish my body. As my body started feeling safer I found more and more ways to get into my body and to be with my emotions. I noticed my body starting to open up and I was able to feel more.
Creating Safety
In the meditations that I teach my clients it’s about creating a safe feeling in your body to feel those emotions and process them. And this takes a bit of time, we might need time to start developing this capacity in our body to have this compassion. The method that I teach clients and I have learned is really to allow you to feel safe and grow this compassionate space. Contrary to what we hear we can hold two emotions at once.
We can hold the space of love and compassion and feeling good and within that hold that pain and trauma that we haven’t processed. The bigger we can make this container of feeling good and safe the better we are able to focus our energy on what needs to be resolved. Deep emotions need a lot of presence and stability in us. This is why sometimes having support is important if you are not able to grow your ability to hold that container for whatever you’ve gone through. Having support with a counsellor or coach versed in somatic work will help you feel through those emotions and feel safe. You’ll (hopefully) feel seen and heard which is usually what is missing. We need that empathy and compassion to really move through these emotions. We’ve probably had a lot of shame around them.
It’s important to understand you need to create a sense of safety for yourself and even within the process of the meditation. If you just start doing meditations and you feel they are not working you might need to take more time to develop your relationship with yourself. Sometimes in a meditation you think nothing is happening OR everything is coming up and you’re feeling ungrounded!
Meditations
What I have learned from my mentor is to create that solid space to hold all of those emotions. In this POST it goes through the process of creating that container to start with. It is a very embodied experiential process to learn. If you are curious about it you can check out my new course or the post above and make it a practice.
Journalling
Journalling is another way to train yourself to be present with yourself. This trains you to hold those tough emotions and as you get better and better at it deeper and deeper emotions will come up.
I still have deep emotions come up but I am a stronger container to hold it all. This is a lifelong process that can feel really hard at times but with support you can move through them with more ease and connection.
I hope this helped you understand a bit more about trauma (unresolved emotions) and why it’s important to create safety and a solid container to hold and process them.
If you have any questions leave a comment below 🙂
To feeling it all,
~Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist.
