DUMP THAT EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

Life happens, and as a result we experience emotional highs and lows.  After all, how many of us have managed to get through life without experiencing some pretty emotional stuff: getting that dream job; the loss of a loved one; buying the perfect house; being made rendundant; becoming ill or dealing with the illness of someone close; relationship breakups; etc.  And that’s not to mention all the stuff we dealt with as children!  
 
The emotional highs are great and something we want to hold on to: positive emotions help the body to thrive and heal because feeling happy, excited, positive, etc kicks out lots of positive hormones and chemicals that support a healthy body.  According to Meet Your Happy Chemicals by Loretta Craziano Breuning, “Dopamine is the good feeling you get when you approach a reward.  Serotonin is the good feeling of getting respect.  Oxytocin is the feeling of trust, and endorphin is the euphoria that masks physical pain.”
 
But emotional lows can harm us if we keep them around.  Most of the time, we cope with the lows and move on with life experiencing no lasting effects.  But sometimes those emotional lows stick with us and that can affect everything that happens afterwards.
 
Emotions are stored in the body (because you can’t feel with your mind) and that’s OK when it’s positive, but negative emotions which are stored can impact on our health and wellbeing – mentally and physically.
 
Emotional Detox
 
The main negative emotions which are likely to cause long term harm are: anger, fear, sadness, guilt and hurt.  And there are lots of other negative emotions that fall within those broad categories.

If you feel you are being held back today, by emotional responses to things that have happened in the past, then you may need an emotional detox. 
 
Signs that you may benefit from an emotional detox are:

• Having “buttons” that other people can press, causing you to react in an inappropriate or over the top way
• Being unable to think of loved ones who have passed because it’s just too painful
• Still feeling that a past relationship that ended badly is unresolved
• Feeling affected by something someone else did or said to you in the past
• Still feeling wracked with guilt over things that have happened in the past
• Feeling hurt by past events even today
• Allowing fear to hold you back
• Repeatedly thinking of some circumstance or situation that happened in the past that had negative connotations

 
And the weird thing is that it’s not always the big stuff that we hold on to.  Small slights and fairly insignificant events can have a big impact, but because that event (and the emotion attached to the event) is stored at an unconscious level we can’t know what is or isn’t important.  The great benefit of an emotional detox is that it clears all negative events, all the way back into the past, for all the negative emotions. 
 
Holding onto negative emotions takes a lot of energy, so an emotional detox can release that energy.  They don’t call it emotional baggage for nothing – it really does weigh you down.  Letting go of negative emotions can help you feel lighter and brighter: it allows you to rebalance and get centred, helping you to act from a place of peace and joy.  You can experience the world without those negative filters and the drag of the past.
 
An emotional detox consists of releasing the 5 main negative emotions which can harm the body if stored: anger, fear, sadness, guilt, hurt.  And the letting go bit only involves a visualisation exercise, so anyone can do it.
 
An emotional detox takes 1½-2hrs, it’s easy to do and very often at the end of it you can’t remember what it was you let go of (after all it’s gone).  One way to check if you might benefit from an emotional detox is to think about an event in the past which still makes you feel an emotion as you think about it.  If you still get that old feeling – even if it’s not as strong – then you would benefit from an emotional detox.
 
The great thing with an emotional detox is that it’s simple and it’s all done in your head, so you don’t need to say to anyone what you’ve been letting go of – you don’t even need to know yourself.  With an emotional detox, there’s no angst bringing up all the stuff you’ve spent years trying to forget.
 
If you think you could do with an Emotional Detox (and who couldn’t) or if you want to know more, contact Doris Wylie on 07724 197627 or email doriswylie@btinternet.com

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