The 5 Dimensions of Health:Emotional Health
When you hear the word "emotions," what comes to mind? Do you instinctively want to push them away, or are you curious to explore them more deeply? Can you identify, process, and move through your emotions with ease, or do you find yourself stuck? Perhaps you even feel disconnected and struggle to recognize what emotions you are experiencing.
The emotional dimension of health is often overlooked, yet it is often the key to calming the nervous system and giving the body what it needs to heal. So, what are emotions, anyway, and how can you go about identifying, processing, and moving through them in a healthy way?
Emotions are instinctive or intuitive feelings, distinct from reasoning or knowledge, and can be understood simply as energy in motion—a somatic, body-based way of knowing that is as important as logical, cerebral understanding.
The first step towards a healthy emotional state is noticing. Beliefs, thoughts, and experiences can all generate energy that manifests as sensations we feel in our physical bodies. Noticing physical sensations is one of the best ways to start identifying what emotion you might be experiencing. An excellent resource is Lindsay Braman’s Emotion-Sensation Wheel.
Once you are able to identify the emotion you are experiencing, allow yourself to sit with it and feel it. This doesn’t have to be something you get stuck in or spend a lot of time on, but it is vital that you don’t bypass or stuff emotions. If you bypass or stuff an emotion, it will likely get stuck in the physical body and manifest as tension, pain, or discomfort at some point.
The next step is to process and release the emotion. While verbal processing can be helpful, I believe that we process emotions more fully with the use of body-based practices. Some of my favorite body-based practices are:
Breathwork
Mindful movement practices
Once an emotion has been processed and cleared, it can be helpful to intentionally replace it with a more positive or supportive emotion. I like to do this through the use of:
Breath prayers
Truth Focus Statements
Scripture-based affirmations
Are you ready to address your health in a way that honors the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and energetic dimensions of well-being? Call Sage Wellness Center at 406-560-0662 or book an initial consultation today!