Here are my tips for managing your emotions – an essential element in getting and staying well.
What do you do for your emotional health? We all know good diet is important, to get all the vitamins and minerals we need and keep our gut healthy too. We know that exercise is important for staying fit and well, and even that it helps our mental state.
But what do we do about our emotions? And is it even something you place importance on?
The more I travel down this path of natural healing, the more I realise that this is an absolutely essential part of our overall wellbeing. Emotions from years ago can plague our health today, if we haven’t dealt with them. And new emotional upsets can become lodged too.
There are more scientific studies that you’d think, realising that positive and negative emotions play an important part in our overall health. In other words, positive energy or a positive mindset can help to promote good physical health, preventing or overcoming disease. While negative emotions and thoughts, including stress, can actually cause our health to decline.
So how can we promote emotional health? What can we do to clear our negative emotions and upsets? Because it is not enough to say, “think positively”. We all suffer from difficult and stressful life events from time to time. The sad emotions will come – we are human, after all. So how do we let them go and move on?
Firstly, we need to accept that emotions – negative and positive – are a natural part of life. Nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing different from anyone else!
Next, we need to regularly clear overwhelming emotions as they arise. Two excellent strategies are Tapping and Guided meditation.
Tapping uses acupressure points along the energy meridians of our bodies, to reprogramme our brains to release the emotions attached to events. This ancient practice is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine acupuncture and new scientific evidence around neuroplasticity, that shows our brains are malleable. We can effectively release the emotional charge that is connected to a memory. So next time we think of that event, we will not relive the emotions too. Learn the simple technique at www.thetappingsolution.com or come into clinic and I’ll take you through a tailored process just for you.
Guided meditation is another way we can retrain our brains to release overwhelming emotions. This works well on recent emotions, allowing us to let go of the stresses of the day. Choose a meditation that suits your particular mood or need at the time, such as self-compassion or dealing with grief, pain management or overcoming anxiety. Try the free app here, and search for what you need.
We should also clear away any past emotions that are still affecting us today. One way to learn what trapped emotions are getting in our way, is through muscle testing. It is a simple technique that allows us to connect to our subconscious mind, to assess what is true or false for us. You can learn muscle testing yourself but to really help yourself with trapped emotions, see a Kinesiologist at Health Space who works with emotions. They will have many tools to help your release and cleanse. Then give yourself time to heal, especially if you’ve been holding on to something for a long time.
Radical Remission is the term used for cancer survivors who beat the odds. The ones you hear about who live for years after being hold they only have mere months. An amazing researcher, Dr Kelly Turner, studied these people from around the globe, to see what they had in common. What resulted was New York Times bestselling book, which I believe everyone should read, documenting the 9 key factors in healing and staying well. While it’s no surprise to me that diet, supplements and herbal medicine were used by all the radical remission survivors, what was really interesting was the focus on emotional health. Emotional or spiritual based healing makes up 6 of the 9 key factors! Things like following your intuition, releasing suppressed emotions, increasing positive emotions and embracing social support are all crucial. Then there is deepening your spiritual connection and creating strong, meaningful reasons to live. These may not be as tangible as eating your greens, and may not be a big focus in our modern society, but these things are more than important. They are essential to a healthy, happy life.
Finally, incorporate emotional clearing into our everyday lives, as part of a healthy lifestyle, is the way we can not just get well, but stay well. Learn to be true to yourself and listen to your heart and intuition. Once you learn to harness that power, it will tell you what you need to know.
If you are struggling with health concerns of any kind, consider investigating the emotional cause. It may be a crucial step in unravelling the answers you seek. And it could put you finally on your own path to recovery.
For some guided help on your natural health journey – not just diet and lifestyle, but emotions too – visit me in clinic at Health Space Hornsby.
Kate is a passionate nutritionist located in the Hornsby Health Space clinic. She is known in the Hornsby community to be passionate about helping us and has a personalised approach to dietary and lifestyle advice. Reach her at the Hornsby clinic on 9482 4877 or email kategray@healthspaceclinics.com.au.
