How does a person really manage to change? What lies at the base of how a human can change behaviour or stress reactions? An important aspect of this is being able to neurologically connect thoughts with emotions, and emotions with sensations in the body, being able to link both the cognitive, the physical as well as the emotional side of being human. As a coach, I know my client is not moving forward if we only talk at a rational level and my client is not experiencing what he/she is talking about. But when a client really gets a sense of what something is like, experiencing it, then there is movement on a deeper level.
How do you know you are sad, angry, happy, calm (or any other emotion)…? Whatever you are feeling right now, stop and feel how it really feels – what signals is your body sending you, so that you KNOW you are feeling that emotion? HOW do you know you are calm, stressed, frustrated or energetic? We have experienced certain emotions 1000s of times, but never stopped to really notice how it really feels when we experience that emotion. In order to know you are feeling an emotion, your body is sending you signals, otherwise you would not know you feel it. For example, if I feel sad, I might feel a coolness around my eyes, whereas when I am really energized, I might feel it in my cheeks as a warmth and as energy in my eyes. Someone feels a tightness in their chest when they feel anxious, someone feels storm in their mind when they are angry, someone else might feel a lightness in their body when they’re calm and at peace.
Why is this important to know and to be able to identify?
Emotions are like kids, they need attention. An emotion is there to send you a signal of some sort – to tell you something (usually to protect you and help you survive), and just like kids, once you give them pure attention, not wishing they go away, but just stopping to truly see and hear them, they get what they need and evolve, change. Like Co-active coach training explains it – emotions are e-motions -> energy in motion. Once you acknowledge your emotion, the energy will move and your stuck feeling moves on, developing somehow, not being stuck anymore.
So next time you feel a headache, sorrow, frustration, happiness, nothingness, calm or anything else – stop and ask yourself: how do I know this is what I am feeling? What signals is my body sending me? In this way you create a neurological connection between your brain, your emotion and your body -> your understanding deepens, and just like a child, the emotion will change once you look at it objectively, see it, observe it.
In coaching – I feel it is important to help my clients stop and realise their emotions and their body signals, to use their full awareness, in order to be able to create new neurological pathways, and to shift and create sustainable change. Whatever behaviour we would like to change (let’s say a person wanting to control less), we need to find the underlying emotion we are avoiding (a controller might be avoiding the feeling of not being in control, of letting go), and needs to learn to be with that emotion (to separate oneself from the emotion and just observe it). Once we can be with it, it is not so scary anymore and we can act despite of it.
A feeling is always grounded in the body, and to simply notice this, will create higher awareness and you will be able to experience the impact situations have on you. You become stronger and more resilient.
For more information:
please feel free to book a personal 1:1 to see how we could work together to get your stuck emotions moving
read more about body listening and focusing at: focusing.org
join my next mental fitness course where you will learn to be with all kinds of emotions in a new way
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