Are You Emotional Body Literate? Here's How to Tell.

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I'm in the midst of my 14 Day Emotional Body Challenge.

I've been sharing resources and guidance to support your emotional body literacy this past week.

It's a very important conversation to have. And one that very few people are willing to talk about, let alone do the actual work it requires.


Your willingness to show up for your self, for your emotional body, is courageous. It is the path of the warrior.


So few people understand the gifts of the emotional body.

In my lifelong journey with grief, loss and pain, I've encountered countless teachers, healers and therapists who aren't walking their talk.

The majority of clients I work with are navigating deep loss, grief, and the lasting impact of unprocessed emotions. Undigested emotion will create issues on all four levels of your being- physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.


The resistance to feeling your pain has dire consequences. Avoidance of your grief and sadness hinders your ability to feel joy.


Your willingness to move closer to your sadness, loss, pain and fear will result in an expanded ability to experience the power of happiness and fulfillment.

Simply put, the capacity in which you are showing up for your grief, is the capacity in which you'll be able to hold your joy.


Often we need support with this process of leaning into our pain.

This healing support may need to be personal or communal. But without consistent, safe, non-judgemental holding mirrored to you, reshaping and recreating new possibility for yourself will be near to impossible.


This is the disappointment I have felt with countless therapists, healers and teachers.

Those who I thought would understand my pain and bottomless sorrow, the heavy weight of my lifelong grief. I thought they would get it. But instead I have often been mirrored discomfort and disapproval, their own unprocessed emotion!


This is why it is vital that you do your emotional body work diligently.


You will pass on, mirror and express your emotional body literacy (or illiteracy) to others- consciously or unconsciously.


The only way to heal the pain, is to walk through it- to move with it. To use it. To create with it. But most importantly to bring your presence to it.

Presence is a powerful healing resource. This is the presence you have longed for, that you have always desired- from your parents, friends, family, teachers, healers and therapists.


We all long for presence.


You can start healing- simply by giving yourself the gift of presence.


Often, presence is the simple part. Maybe you can get there, but then what?


Once you arrive in presence, what is the next step?


How do you know if you are actually hearing your emotional body?


How do you extract the wisdom in all the pain and darkness?


Building a relationship (like any relationship) takes time.

It's your slow, consistent steps that let your emotional body know you are truly committed to the relationship. Big, powerful emotions are messengers from your emotional body that you need to pay attention. You need to lean in closer. You need something. But what?


The wisdom of the emotional body is that it will share your needs with you. Your emotional body lets you know when a need is being met, and when a need is not being met.


As a highly sensitive person, you have an extra special emotional body.

You have more internal receptors to communicate what you are feeling. This can be helpful for getting your needs met. But if you aren't paying attention often enough, you will also experience bigger emotional waves as well.


Daily maintenance is crucial- especially for highly sensitive people like you and me.

Make sure you're doing a daily four level check-in.


Here are some other ways to know if you are honoring your emotional body, or if you're frozen, stuck, avoiding or resisting its messages:

-Do you pause to listen to your emotions, to check in with what arrives and then use this to inform your actions and choices?

-Can you be present (very present) to others' emotions and navigate which are "theirs" and which are "yours"? 

- Do you dump your emotions on others as a way to cope with your own overwhelm?

-Do you hate tears? Anger? Do you wish it could be happy and "smooth" all the time for your Self and your relationships? 

-Do you push past your own emotions, trying to skip to the "good stuff"? 

-Do you cut and paste over your feelings- especially around others- in order to keep things "tidy" and not rock the boat? 

-Do you allow time and space for discomfort and emotions like sadness, anger, depression, grief and loneliness? 

-Do you use drugs or alcohol, food and other "feel good" methods to enhance your life? Especially when life feels tough? 
 
Read more about befriending your emotions here


I'll be sharing more emotional body resource with you in the coming days.


Remember that your courage to show up- no matter what is arriving within- is the most courageous thing you can do for yourself. 


Your presence is the first step to awakening.


I'm here to support your journey of emotional body intelligence and awakening to its many gifts.


In loving kindness- for your whole being,


Swati*

Follow along with my 14 Day Emotional Body Challenge here

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{Space Clearing the Heart} Discover how to transform your emotional body in a creative and embodied way. 
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