Embracing Emotions: A Deep Dive into Self-Healing Techniques

Have you ever considered the true power of your emotions? How they can guide, heal and transform, rather than just disturb? Join me on a journey beyond the taboo, and into the heart of our emotional highs and lows. I'll be sharing personal stories, practical tools and the importance of seeking help when necessary. It's a chance to grapple with the reality that our emotions are not just normal, but integral to our wellbeing.

Ever thought about harnessing the power of breath and body in managing your emotions? Together, we'll discover techniques such as present breath awareness and somatic exercises that I've found incredibly helpful. We'll discuss the benefits of trying different ways of processing our emotions and delve into powerful self-healing techniques like mirror work, holotropic breath work, and IFS parts work. These methods can help address different aspects of ourselves and lead to emotional harmony.

Finally, I'll lead you to an unexplored territory of seeking guidance from our future selves. We'll explore how visualizing our ideal future selves can help us make sense of our current state and emotional challenges. I'll introduce more tools like EFT tapping, a technique that has the potential to change our state by shifting neurological connections. So, join me in embracing, understanding, and harnessing the full spectrum of our emotions for a deeper self-understanding.

Techniques discussed in the show:

1. Journaling - wild mind writing/artists way
2. Write down all of your fears, anger, problems 
3. Present breath awareness
4. Crying
5. Feeling the feels
6. Mirror work
7. Holotropic breathwork
8. Talking out loud about what you are upset about
9. IFS Parts work
10. Movement
11. Music
12. Somatic exercises
13. Inner child work - download a FREE Inner Child Guide Here
14. Conversations with your future self
15. EFT Tapping
16. “Sitting in the stink”

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Receptive Impact Podcast. I'm your host, nina Elise. Hello everyone, it is Nina. I am back for a brand new episode and I'm really excited about this episode today because it is a little bit different than what I normally talk about, something a little bit more taboo, which is emotions, and many people might say like, oh taboo, emotions aren't taboo, but I'm going to be going into more of the lower emotional states, like depression and when we go through our highs and our lows. And I say this is taboo because not many people like to talk about it or acknowledge that this is something that they experience in their everyday life, and for me, as an emotional being, it was something that I really suppressed for 30-something years of my life, basically, and it wasn't until my early 30s that I really started to go down this path of realizing that emotions and the emotional highs and lows are actually very normal and that is actually very healthy to feel it and to not try to block it or distract myself when I'm feeling things and go shopping or buy something or eat something or just watch a bunch of TV, so that I don't have to look at the underlying feelings and emotions that are there. And so the intention of this specific episode is just to kind of bring that to light, to normalize this and say it's not a bad thing, you're not a bad person for feeling these highs and these lows. It's actually something that's very normal and it's not really talked about too much. And so I want to share some of my experiences and a lot of different tools that I have used in the past and they still continue to use today, to help me process a lot of these emotional states that come up, whether it is a low or if it is even a high as well.

Speaker 1: 1:51

And one of the biggest things when we are in these lower states is that we're actually resisting that state. We're resisting that lower emotion, whether it's sadness or grief or anger or whatever it is. They're actually not bad. It's actually something that is coming up to, that's trying to get our intention to look at something that's bothering us and it just needs to be seen and acknowledged and felt. And so by resisting or suppressing these emotions or these lower states, we're actually amplifying it and making it stay with us longer, and sometimes there isn't anything we can do to force it out or process it, but there are tools that have helped me move through lower emotional states, and so I'm going to share this with you today.

Speaker 1: 2:36

And I just want to add an asterisk here like, obviously, for continuously low states of like being in depression or grief or having really, really low thoughts or emotions, I highly recommend working with a therapist. I have a therapist that I work with, and when I'm not able to process or I feel like I'm reaching an all time low, I have somebody that I can reach out to for help, and it's actually someone that I work with on a continuous basis, at least once or twice a month, just so that I'm not dipping down into lower states or that I'm also learning how to manage my emotions continuously by working with someone. So it's also really helpful to work with someone because they can show you what your thought patterns are and what your distractions are and why you do the things that you do, so that you can understand yourself more. And it's been very empowering for me personally, because I've learned a lot of different tools from them and I'm able to handle my emotions like far, far more than I used to, and so highly recommend that also. You know, if you are in a low state, sometimes it is necessary to be on medicine because you need to bring yourself almost up to like this neutralized state, and I'm not against any type of medicine to help with that. I think sometimes it's very necessary. So just know that it's actually very normal for people to be in that situation and that it's not something to be hard on yourself about and it's something that we're all dealing with in her own way, and so, if that's your way to deal with it or therapy or tools that I'm about to share, there's so many different ways to work with our emotions, especially when we are in these lower states.

Speaker 1: 4:21

So I know that when you get into, or when I get into, lower emotional states, like some days, I might wake up and I might feel super sad and my mind will try to attach it to a person or a scenario or especially something in the past that I have shame or guilt or regret or like some sort of like judgment towards, and it basically just makes that emotion larger and larger and larger and it kind of like spirals out of control. And sometimes a lot of the tools that I use in the morning whether it's meditation or journaling or EFT tapping like even that is just it doesn't even touch it. And so in those scenarios, I sometimes just say this is just going to be a day where I'm just going to be sad. So I'll go a little bit more in depth into that, but right now I'm going to go down this list of different things that help me when I'm in my lower states, and these are things that can help me pull out of these lower states, because I go deeper into the root and deeper into my subconscious to say, okay, what is it that is coming up in order for me to look at and to give attention to and give some love to, because everyone knows that the only way out is through. And so this is so, so true for emotional states, like if we are in a state where we're sitting in our stink and we're just like I feel sad or I'm depressed or whatever, and then we're resisting it and we're like I don't want to be here, I need to go, be productive and be happy because I have this going on or whatever. You're just going to continue to perpetuate that state, and so the best thing you can do is, even if you just have like five minutes of time, some of these tools are going to be so helpful for you to begin to move through that. Not that you're trying to necessarily change it. It's more of just you're giving attention to it and you're acknowledging it, so you're not just completely suppressing it.

Speaker 1: 6:11

One of the first things that I really, really love to do is journaling, and it's not just like oh, I'm sitting down and I'm writing my diary. You can call this wild mind writing or connecting with your higher self, and what this really means is you basically just start writing and if you don't know what to write about, you can just start saying like, oh, I'm angry about this or I'm feeling sad about this, and you just let your mind just dump everything out on paper and you can literally say things like I'm so angry at this person I want to punch them in the face, or I hate myself or I ruin my life. Like writing down all of your fears and your problems and your anger is like just getting it out of your head onto paper, is like the best thing that you can do, because it's no longer stuck inside of you and the longer you write, the more it becomes like something other than you is starting to write and it just kind of pours out of you naturally and it can be a very cathartic exercise to do to just write it all out and then by the end you can go back and say, wow, like that was inside of me. And if you're familiar with the artist way, it's a very similar process, where you just start writing or there'll be journal prompts and you can write and you have just all of these things from your mind just dump out. And what I love about the end of that is they recommend doing almost like these affirmations to counteract what you just said.

Speaker 1: 7:29

So you can go back and you can look at what you wrote and you can give yourself a lot of grace and compassion and say, wow, okay, I got this all out. It's normal, like I acknowledge all of this that came out. And so what is the opposite of how I want to feel? And then you begin to write affirmations that are opposite of that. So you can say like, oh, like I wrote that I hate myself. Okay, well, I'm going to write that I'm an infinite being that is worthy of all love, no matter how terrible I think that I am. Or you might have written like I'm a failure and instead of that you can say or the affirmation for that, you could say something like oh, I am someone who is learning and growing, and anytime something doesn't go as I wish it had gone, I know that I am learning and I am stronger to meet the next hurdle that may come my way.

Speaker 1: 8:20

So there are different ways that you can reframe and turn what you dumped out on paper into something more positive, because it's almost like you becoming this advocate, and then you're also reprogramming your brain to look at yourself in a different way, and so this is something that I do almost every single day in the morning when I wake up in the morning, because it just kind of dumps everything out and it just I have nothing to hide from, like it's all out in the open, and it's very helpful for me to kind of switch that flip, especially if I'm veering into that lower energy state. Another thing that I do is called present breath awareness, and it is probably the most simple thing that you can do anywhere at any time, and it feels really uncomfortable at first because it's like you are literally just sitting with it all. But you're just sitting, you can keep your eyes open and basically you're just putting your attention on your breath coming in and out and you can breathe through your nose, you can breathe through your mouth whatever is comfortable for you. But essentially what you do, you put your attention on the emotion or the feeling that is going on in your body and you just breathe, like it really is just as simple as that, and you remove the judgment from anything, from anything that you're feeling, and you just allow yourself to sit there and feel and I will tell you like as you're, as you're learning how to work more with your emotions and deal with your emotions like it doesn't mean that they're going to magically go away, like you are still going to experience crummy, crummy emotions, that you're like these are here forever and you just want to run away from them and you don't want to feel them.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Well, this isn't a perfect world where we're in just these higher states all the time. Like we are human beings, like we need lower states because they force us to look at things from a different perspective. They actually help us in our creativity because, if you know, like the greatest artists and singers, like they write the most beautiful, like soul-wrenching songs after a breakup or after they've gone through something really devastating in their lives, like there is so much beauty that can be found in these, these lower states, so we we can't avoid them. They're actually like this beautiful contrast that is so necessary as human being. So when we can look at it from that perspective, we just know like, okay, we're going to have highs and we're going to have lows, and so when we're in these lows, we're just going to have these tools in order to work through them.

Speaker 1: 10:42

And so that present breath exercise is you can just breathe through this and you might still feel emotions the entire time that you were doing this breath work, and you'll be thinking this isn't doing anything. What is the point of this? But it's really just about getting present in your body and bringing the attention to your breath versus the emotions that are happening or the thoughts that are going running wild in your mind. And so for me, I might do anything, do this for one to 10 minutes, maybe longer, and I might do it throughout the day if I'm really struggling, and you'll find over time that the emotions begin to diminish and they're not as intense because you're actually sitting with them.

Speaker 1: 11:23

And this kind of pairs with somatic exercises. And so when I say somatic exercises, there's a lot of different ways that you can do this. My favorite way is that present breath awareness. So you're getting very still in the body. But what you do with this is you scan the body and you see where the emotions feel stuck or where they feel really, really big. For me, I tend to feel a lot of it in my chest or my throat and it's something that I feel like needs to come out of me, but it's like kind of stuck there and it feels like heavy and it just doesn't feel good and I just want to run away from it.

Speaker 1: 11:54

But with this specific exercise, you sit still, you put your attention on it, you do that slow breath in and out, and the difference here is like you just don't try to change it, you just don't judge it. It's almost like you're watching a movie or like you're kind of stepping outside of your body and you're like, okay, I'm breathing through this, but I'm not the actual emotion or the sensation in my body. And a lot of different things can happen from this, like if you're just putting your attention on your emotions and you're just observing it. Sometimes I'll get visuals in my mind about old memories that pop up for me to look at and I do some type of reparenting with that and give myself lots of inner child and compassion and grace, like I do that inner child work where I kind of talk to myself as if I were talking to a child, with lots of love and grace, and sometimes I might feel like crying or I might feel like screaming or punching something, or I'll punch a pillow. So a lot of things can come out of this somatic exercise. So it's just basically this energy within yourself that wants to be released in some way, and so this is a very liberating exercise that you can do that can lead to the release of whatever is going on inside of you.

Speaker 1: 13:06

Obviously, if all else fails, my favorite is crying. It's like my go-to. Sometimes it can just be like at the end of yoga class or just I move my body and all this energy like came up to be processed and I just need to cry. Or I'm listening to a sad song and I start crying or whatever. Like tears are literally releasing water that is containing these emotions and these memories and you're releasing them, and so it's actually very, very healthy and we were taught that like crying is weak or it's something that we shouldn't do, especially with men, and it's like that's not true at all, like it's actually a very, very healthy way to process these emotional states that are going on inside of you, and so it really is just allowing yourself to be a little bit more open and experimenting with these different ways of processing your emotions.

Speaker 1: 13:57

So another way that I really like to play around with is mirror work. When I say mirror work, a lot of times it's me just sitting in front of my mirror and kind of like talking at myself or talking to myself and saying, hey, these are my problems, and like just getting it all out, like just like talking to myself in the mirror, and as these things come up, it's almost like journaling, but you're actually speaking it out loud, like you're just getting it all out, and then from there I'm able to look at myself, and then in those moments I do a lot of inner child work, where I'm saying all of these things and I'm just like, okay, like it's okay for me to feel these things, it's safe for me to express them, and then normally what ends up happening is, after I get all of that out, I just say, wow, like you're so courageous, you're so proud, you're doing the best that you can, and that is more than enough. And I just say really encouraging, like positive things to myself, because that is a moment again where you're kind of like rewiring your brain from putting the attention on these little emotions and you're giving attention to them so that they can come out of you in the form of your voice, of speaking, and so I don't know if anyone has tried that before, but it's actually been one of my go-to things that I've been doing recently that have been so, so helpful for me. And another breath work technique this is a little bit more intense, so if you're not familiar with it, I recommend working with someone or doing this in person so you can get a better idea of feel of what actually happens in his experience during this. But there's holotropic breath work, which is a little bit more intense and it's like a three breath process. You're laying flat on the ground and you normally put on music and I just need like five to 15 minutes.

Speaker 1: 15:38

Sometimes people do longer but basically you set your attention of what you would like to process or like where your emotions are feeling stuck and where you want them to move, and you breathe into your belly and then you breathe into your chest and then you exhale out through your mouth, and you do that nonstop for as long as you decide to do it for and it can cause a lot of sensations that are uncomfortable in the body, like sometimes my hands cramp up and my feet cramp up and my abs get numb, like there are so many different sensations, and it can almost even like send you into a psychedelic state. So it depends on, like, what you're going for it with this, but for me, it's a way for energy to be moved within the body in order to be released. So sometimes in these holotropic breath work sessions that I do by myself because I've been doing this for the last few years, so I know how to do this on my own Like I'll end up crying, or I'll end up like screaming or yelling or shaking or hitting my hands and my legs on the ground in order to like release this energy that's like trapped or like stuck inside of me, and so, again, this is more of an intense way to release emotions. It's not something that I really go to, because I feel like just sitting and breathing is the easiest thing that you can do, so you don't have to like put yourself into these like really highly intense situations in order to process your emotions.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Another thing is like parts work. If anyone is familiar with that, if you are familiar with that whole IFS system, where there's basically like different parts of you that may seem like they're in conflict. There's this form of therapy where you can talk to different aspects of yourself. So there might be like the scared child inside of you, or there might be this angry part of you that needs to be acknowledged or looked at, and so there's a way that you can get in touch with this, and that's either through journaling or talking out loud.

Speaker 1: 17:31

I have found that when I'm in really emotional states, I'll just start talking out loud. I will just say, like this is what's wrong and this is why I'm angry, and then I'll just start talking to that part and say, okay, well, why are you angry? Or another part will pop up and say, well, you can't be angry because this. And then it's almost like I have this conversation and I just listen to these different parts of myself and then I learn how to bring all of them together so that they're all working cohesively together, because, at the end of the day, all of these parts just want to be heard and they just want to be seen, and that is why there's this conflict or this depression, because there are parts of us that feel suppressed, because we're not paying attention to them, and it's this energy that is trapped and bringing us into these lower states. These are obviously like things that you can work with your therapist on. My therapist does parts work. She does EFT tapping, she does a somatic therapy. I've worked with therapists who have done breath work before, so there are different ways that you can do this work on your own and with people who have the background and the certifications to do this as well. So just a few more with these tools that have been so, so helpful for me.

Speaker 1: 18:40

So inner child work is probably one of my favorite things to do. I actually infuse this into like everything I do almost every single day. So inner child work can be done in a lot of different ways, but one thing that I do that is very simple is when I'm feeling sad, I just sit and I close my eyes and I conjure up this idea or this image of little Nina and I see what she's doing, I see what she's up to. If I'm feeling really sad, sometimes I'll get this flash of an image of her just laying on the ground, crying, feeling really sad, and I'll just slowly approach her and say like hey, what do you need? And just kind of have a conversation with them and just saying, like what does my inner child need? And sometimes it's like I just need a hug, or I just want to be alone, or I just need a nap, or I just need to play, or I just need some love and I want to go get some ice cream, like there are so many different things that can come up when you're doing this inner child work. And it's really beautiful because it is this form of reparenting, of really giving yourself grace and compassion while you are in these lower states, and it's almost like you're becoming like your parent or like your cheerleader and just giving yourself so much love, something that you may not have received that grace or that compassion as a child or growing up, and so you're learning how to give it to yourself in this moment. And two more things.

Speaker 1: 19:57

So future conversations this is actually something that I've been playing around with recently. It's about talking to yourself in the future and saying, okay, I'm depressed now and I'm feeling really terrible now, but if I met future Nina, my ideal state of like, this is the life that I would want to be living, or this is the feeling, like I want to be in this happy, joyful state. What would they have to say to me right now? Are they encouraging? What are they doing? What are their characteristics? What are their habits Like, how are they living their lives? And this is really helpful for me to say, like, okay, like you know, if future Nina were to come and tell me like hey, I'm feeling really crappy right now, or I'm not feeling very good, and future Nina comes to me and says, hey, like everything is going to be okay, like life is good, this is a temporary moment and right now you just need to feel everything and just know that it's going to pass.

Speaker 1: 20:53

And sometimes, like future Nina will tell me like, oh, just go do this or just sit here in journal or call this person and talk to them, because they can offer you a different perspective. Or just go out and do something different or move your body, or like there's so many different things that your future self can tell you, but only you know, because it's coming from you and it's knowing to listen to that and to trust them and just hear what they have to say because, honestly, like know that you wouldn't see that vision or that version of yourself if you didn't think it was possible. And so that's why I feel like it's it's easy to believe what my future self is saying to me, because I'm like, when I see a version of my future self, I'm like wow, like she's incredible, like she's so amazing and she's so like, like successful in her own ways and she's accomplished so much and she has reached her version of success in the way that she defines success, and I just see her as this incredible woman and I'm like wow, like she's amazing. But I know that she resides within me because she's in the future and, like I'm envisioning it, and so I have so much respect for what that version of me is saying to me in that moment. And the last thing that I'm gonna say, or the last tool that I use, is I call it, or I've heard it been called just sitting in the stink.

Speaker 1: 22:09

Because, honestly, like there are days where you're just like I am trying all of these tools, like I'm talking to myself and I'm journaling and I've done all of these things and it's just like nothing is working and you can't just try to force yourself through through the situation or through the lower emotions, like you just need to be with it and, like I said at the beginning, like resisting is what is going to cause it to continue. And so the days that I just am really struggling and I wake up and I'm just like, wow, I feel really sad and I've done all these tools and I've gone through all of these things, I'm like you know what, there's a reason for me being in this lower state and it's gonna force me to evaluate my life and look at things in a different perspective, and so it's actually necessary for me to be here. And so in those days it's about not doing anything, like it's not trying to change my state, it's just accepting where I'm at and that sadness and that anger and that grief or whatever it is that I'm feeling. And sometimes that looks like just being horizontal and watching movies for an entire weekend. And it's not like my normal state, like I don't own a TV, like I very rarely watch, like Netflix or anything like that, unless I'm like in these states or I'm feeling like I need to rest. But when you're sitting in the sink. It's like sometimes you're like I'm just not gonna run from this, like it's just I'm just gonna feel it and I'm gonna be okay with it and I'm just gonna be sad, and I think that can be really difficult for us to accept, because we're told we need to feel happy and we need to do all the things and we need to be productive, and if we're not doing all of those things, then we are, you know, wasting time or there's something wrong with us because we can't get out of the state and it's just prolonged over and over and over again.

Speaker 1: 23:56

Well, I'm here to tell you that, like I have been in those states for a really, really long time and I think that, especially when you go through this journey of like awakening and getting to really know yourself, there can be months where you're just feeling in these lower states, where you have more lower states and you have higher states, and I truly believe that is because there's almost like a death going on of like old parts of ourself as we go through this process of waking up and coming back to ourselves, because we're realizing like we weren't living a life that was in alignment or, you know, we're having to let go of parts of ourselves and identities and people in our lives that we had held onto a very for a very long time because they felt safe. But we're having to let go of them and so there definitely is a mourning process and I don't think that most people are conscious of that, and so they sit in these states and they try to attach their mind to like, oh, I'm sad because of this and it's may not even be for that reason and maybe this unconscious reason of like, wow, I'm just grieving and I just need to give myself time to grieve. And I have been in those states for months and months and I was like I had support and friends and family and therapists that I worked with to help me when I was in those states, and it was like I learned how to not be attached to that state and realize the reason why I was feeling those things. And it wasn't a bad thing, it was just me processing in my own time, in my own way. And when you start to look at that within yourself and you remove that judgment, it actually helps those emotions process through faster and their own time. Because when we're blocking it and we're resisting it and we're shaming ourselves and we're judging ourselves for being in those lower states, then we're just going to continuously perpetuate them and it's gonna seem that much more or worse. So that is what I have to say about all the different tools that I have used.

Speaker 1: 25:49

I didn't go too much into EFT tapping. I actually really wanna do another episode specifically on that because of how much it has been helpful for me in my own journey. But it is actually something that I do during the day and or any moment that I'm feeling sad or I'm feeling low, and it's kind of like this quick fix of being able to tap on these different meridian points within my body on my head and my face and my chest and it's pretty popular. You can find lots of EFT tapping videos on YouTube and they basically help you really change your state and shift neurological connections in your mind. So this is something that I highly recommend people play around with and experiment with. So if you go on YouTube, you can look up something like EFT tapping for sadness, eft tapping for grief, eft tapping for joy.

Speaker 1: 26:43

There are so many different like states that you can look on YouTube and I guarantee you that there is something out there for you and over time, the more that you do it, you can end up doing this on your own and it becomes something super simple you can do within a few minutes that will shift your state and while sometimes it may not be immediate, sometimes it could take, you know, if you're really shifting like a belief system or like something like core within yourself, it could take up to a couple of weeks or a month or two in order for you to really see the benefits or the shifts from what you're diving into and what you're releasing. But for me, I find that it's a really simple, quick fix. Okay, that's it. For real, I tend to do this a lot on my episodes where I'm like I'm done and then I'm like, wait, no, I remember something else. So that is it.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Those are my tips and those are my experiences and working with low states, and again, I just really want to reiterate that it is normal, like we are human beings and we are here to experience the full range of emotions, and I think that we tend to want to run away from them because they don't feel good and we want to constantly feel good. But when we start to face the emotions, yeah, it's gonna be scary and it's gonna suck, but the more that we do that, the more that we realize that they're actually not scary, that they're here to teach us things. And if we begin to accept that and we say, oh, I'm in a low, and you're just like, okay, I'm in a low and I know that this is going to pass. What is this here to teach me? And sometimes it's your body just saying I just need a rest. So it naturally puts itself in a lower state and so it's really learning to get in touch with your body and saying why am I feeling this way and what is it here to tell me or to teach me? And it's actually something really, really beautiful if you can look at it and embrace that way and, like I said, it's not like you're never gonna feel crappy, ever, ever again. Like once you start to learn how do you like work with your emotions and even if you're using all these tools, like, you're still going to feel these emotions. It's just knowing that it's temporary and it will eventually pass, and when you realize that they become something less scary and we just feel them and then we can release them and let them go.

Speaker 1: 28:52

So I hope that you guys enjoyed this episode and it was beneficial to you in some way. I will put all of the different tools that I mentioned in the show notes and if you guys have any questions about this, I would love for you guys to reach out to me. I'm happy to help. I work with a lot of clients who experience these highs and lows as emotional beings and work with them with EFT, tapping and different meditations and somatic therapies as well, and combine that with human design and gene keys as well to help you to get to really understand and know yourself and kind of just give you permission to feel and not feel so alone or scared of your emotions.

Speaker 1: 29:31

So, as always, if you found this episode helpful, entertaining or inspiring in any way, please share with your favorite people and post to your social media. Your support means the world to me and if you haven't already, leave a review about why you love this show, a favorite episode or an insight that really stuck with you after listening, this really helps my podcast be seen and heard by more people. So if you would like to stay in the loop when new episodes go live or just anything else that I have going on, click on the link to sign up for my mailing list. That's on my website at nina-alicecom. Thank you all so much for tuning in. I love you guys so so much. I will talk to you all in the next episode. Bye.