Looks like a lot of you guys really resonated with last week’s post; I knew I wasn’t alone in that experience. That’s what I love about sharing some of these more obscure, harder-to-phrase human experiences — they help me feel less alone, while allowing me to shed some light on what I have come to learn about it in the hopes of helping someone out there who is a few steps behind me.

As promised, today I’m sharing some more specific concrete ways to reconnect with yourself. The way I see it, there are two aspects of this, both equally important and necessary. The first is making a conscious effort to connect with that deeper part of you, with the feelings you may not always want to face and so mostly keep under the surface. This is important so you can first become aware of what is actually going on, and secondly, the very act of venturing into those depths will signal to your mind, body, and heart that you are there for yourself. That is authentic self-love, the kind that makes a lasting impact beyond a single act or gesture. It holds you when you feel lonely, buoys you when you are down, and gives you the strength to soften instead of tense up when you are hurting. It’s the single most important resource you can cultivate, both to connect deeply with yourself and with the rest of the world.

The second component, one that I honestly have only really begun practicing in the past year, is releasing those emotions once you’ve fully felt them. Truth be told, I never even considered this an option. I thought if I made a commitment to go inward and really allow myself to feel all those feelings I was terrified of, I would get stuck in an endless pit of darkness. Though I sometimes read about releasing emotions in certain personal growth/spiritual books, I didn’t cognitively understand how that would work. Of course, the reason this felt so impossible to me is because I wasn’t allowing myself to become familiar with those feelings, and the unknown always feels scary. With time, and through various practices that I have discovered in the past year, I have come to learn the art of releasing, and how that fits in with the practice of reconnection to yourself.

As always, take what resonates with you and leave the rest. But if something does pique your interest and makes you curious to try it, promise me you’ll heed that. To know what to do, you just need to listen.

How to Connect With Your Feelings

There is no one right way to connect with your heart. It can be as simple as placing a hand on your heart space as you move through your day, or taking a few moments to sit in stillness and quiet and listen to your breath, perhaps with a question on your mind that you wish to get a greater perspective on. This can take the form of a regular meditation practice (which I am a big proponent of, as it encourages you to make regular check-ins with yourself more habitual). But if you’re not ready to commit to a formal practice or find the idea of meditation a bit intimidating, it really can be as simple as carving out a few minutes of quiet breathing, either in silence or with some music.

Music

Music has actually always been the most effective way for me to bring my emotions up to the surface and really feel into them. In fact, I’ve created several playlists over the years specifically designed to “get me in my feels.” A lot of times, I will start listening feeling quite emotionless and numb, almost able to convince myself everything is fine, and then something just gets activated and I feel everything. Often, listening to the lyrics of these songs aids in processing because they are related to something I am experiencing, and other times, it’s just the emotion the song conveys that resonates with what I am feeling deep down. Likewise, making music by singing or playing guitar allows me to tap into those feelings that are under the surface and channel them into something beautiful. The most raw emotions often create the most beautiful art.

Movement

My favorite way recently to simultaneously involve heart, mind, and body has been conscious movement. Exercise is interesting because it can easily become a source of distraction and disconnect when we use it as a way to over-fixate or numb out of our bodies. But moving with consciousness is different. My favorite methods are yoga, dance, and walking outside (with just my thoughts for company).  Always after just a short time moving my body in this conscious, loving, and attentive way, I feel a new sense of wholeness and groundedness. I feel connected to myself, and thus, feel more stable and better able to handle whatever comes up.

Habit Check-In

When I am trying to reconnect with my heart, it is important that I notice and become honest with myself about the habits and impulses that are sabotaging this connection. For example, the impulse to check my phone every time I find myself in stillness or an uncomfortable feeling arises, or my impulse to fill my to-do list with task after unnecessary task in an effort to quiet the discontent within me. By noticing these unconscious behaviors, I empower myself to make a better choice and to lean in instead of running. Sometimes, I still succumb to these habits that I know do not serve me, but my awareness is the first step toward change. It allows me to feel more in control of my behaviors, rather than a victim to my patterns, and gives me a chance to pause and reconsider. With time, these pauses become longer and longer, until eventually one day I feel strong enough to resist the temptation entirely.

 

Those moments when you feel the strongest urge to distract, to run, to escape are the moments it’s most imperative that you lean in and reconnect. Look for what is asking to be felt. Allow it to envelop you. Notice how it’s really not so bad once you’re in the eye of the storm; there is a stillness and peace that only exists in that center. And you realize that you really can handle all of it. And that this strength has been there all along, just waiting for you to discover it.

 

How to Release Your Feelings Once You’ve Felt Them

After we have implemented practices that allow us to connect deeply with our inner worlds, it is equally important that we adopt practices for releasing whatever has come up once we have felt it. For most of us, the real reason we shy away from going inward is we don’t feel equipped to truly deal with what we know lurks in the depths. We think all that pain under the surface will pull us under until we become it. And that once we are caught in its grasp, we will no longer be able to find our way out.

But reconnecting to your heart does not mean giving up and throwing yourself into a deep pit of darkness. That is a choice you can certainly make, but the key here is you are the one in control. Only you have the power to relinquish that control, and reconnecting to your heart certainly need not require such a sacrifice. It is about surrender, yes, but this is not the same as giving up. It is about trusting that you can handle whatever comes up and equipping yourself with the tools to actually do so in a conscious and compassionate way.

The commitment to reconnecting with yourself necessitates an acceptance of the totality of your experience. You accept all the feelings that are asking to be felt, and you do so without assigning labels of good or bad, wrong or right. It is all allowed. Interestingly, I have discovered that the full total open-hearted experience of pain and sorrow feels strikingly similar to the full open-hearted experience of profound joy and love. Both have the same root and are cut from the same cloth. Though the experiences seem wildly different on the surface, they share a purpose, and that is to connect you more deeply to your heart and to your inherent humanness.

Some of my favorite ways to process and let go of emotions, when I’m in the thick of reconnecting with my heart, and the constant rising up of emotions threatens to overwhelm are:

Journaling

I’ve spoken quite a bit on here about how important journaling is to me. It’s a practice that saved me from one of the darkest periods of my life, and to this day, it’s one of my most non-negotiable wellness habits. (Ooh, perhaps I should write a post about some of my non-negotiable wellness habits- would you guys want to see that?)  Sometimes I reach this point where I have so many unprocessed thoughts/feelings I am holding onto that I just feel clogged. Stuck in a quagmire that I don’t know how to even begin unraveling. In those times, journaling provides a particularly cathartic release.

For me, the act of writing allows me to be my most honest unfiltered self. Perhaps that’s why I love baring my soul on this blog; in fact, sometimes I sort of forget that anyone is reading on the other end, which allows me to be that much more open and vulnerable. The cool thing about journaling is no one is supposed to read it but you, so there’s no need to hold anything back. As I write, I often find myself working through my feelings, self-soothing, and coming up with brand-new self-realizations that I never would have come to by just thinking. It helps me access the deepest, truest, wisest part of me, and getting her perspective on what I’m feeling is often all it takes to let those feelings go.

See, feelings just want to be noticed and acknowledged. Sometimes they may seem totally irrational, and other times they hold an obvious and important message, but always they are simply asking you to be there for yourself. To show yourself care and compassion and respect, by simply honoring where you are and giving yourself the space to feel all that is asking to be felt. I find journaling is a fantastic way to create that safe space and container for your feelings. And you’ll notice that once you’ve ejected all those thoughts and feelings out of your mind and onto a physical plane, something about that physical separation makes them instantly less powerful and scary.  Oh and if you’re not “the pen and paper type,” I highly encourage you to just open a Word Doc, set a timer for fifteen minutes, and start free-writing. All you need is the willingness to meet yourself where you’re at and let it all out.

Breathing

Okay so, full disclosure. This is the one I have always been most skeptical about and the one that has absolutely blown my mind the most. No pun intended. 😉 I mean, it’s just breathing, right? We all do it; breath in breath out; nothing too magical about it. But halfway through last year, I found myself doing a virtual breathwork class, still skeptical but also highly intrigued. The description had talked about how you should expect an intense release of feelings and a kind of all-around emotional detox, and that felt quite appealing to me at the time. And WOW. It was truly one of the most cathartic experiences of my life and a really pivotal moment in my relationship to my emotions. I came into the session feeling a little sad, a little run-down, but mostly with that familiar numbness that I have come to know through years of ignoring or holding onto feelings. There wasn’t anything that was obviously bothering me, but I also wasn’t feeling myself. In short, I felt clogged.

As advertised, during the session, I experienced an emotional release and detox of epic proportions. I cried; I felt energy literally vibrating throughout my body; I had incredible profound insights come up during the meditation portion that deeply moved me. I’ve done guided breathwork a handful of times since then, and it always shocks me with how powerful it is, but no experience has been as intense as that one. I think it’s because that was the first time in my life that I experienced the physical visceral sensation of releasing pent-up emotions, particularly those I hadn’t realized I was holding on to. I assume the reason subsequent sessions have been less overwhelmingly intense is that I have become better at feeling and releasing in my daily life. I am better now at recognizing the telltale signs of emotional clogging, and I do my best to check in with myself often to take inventory of my emotional landscape.

The thing I love about breathwork is that though it can be a pretty intense release, it’s a really passive and safe-feeling way to come to difficult emotions that you may not be ready to approach head-on. As long as you fully relax into the experience, they will surface and then evaporate on their own once they’ve been acknowledged. At times when I feel emotionally spent and can’t muster the energy to actively dig deeper, breathwork is a fantastic option. If you’re still confused about what counts as breathwork, I should note that while you can absolutely seek out guided sessions (and lots of practitioners are offering them for free in these times, or there are options on meditation apps/Youtube), simple conscious breathing also absolutely counts as breathwork. Really it’s about harnessing the power of your breath to relax your body and conscious mind and allow it to be a conduit for your energy flow. Let toxic thoughts out by breathing them out forcefully; breathe in deeply calmness and peace of mind.

Crying

I cried more than I ever have in my entire life in 2020. I don’t say this as a statement of sadness or as a call for pity. I actually think this is one of the things I am proudest of, and is most indicative of my emotional growth this past year. I used to hold tears back because I thought that made me strong and that if I allowed myself to cry, I wouldn’t ever stop. In truth, letting out my tears when they welled up has always resulted in a feeling of clarity and lightness in the place of the heaviness I had been carrying around. Tears are our bodies’ natural way to release and cleanse, and by holding them in, you are keeping all that heavy stagnant energy stuck in your body. In time, that energy clogs your heart space, leading to those feelings of numbness and disconnection. I know how scary it can be to allow your most intense feelings to be fully expressed. It can feel like an identity crisis if you’re used to being the person who always holds it all together. But in truth, we have to break to grow. One of my favorite meditation teachers Sarah Blondin says, “Pain is a portal to the divine.” And it’s true; if you can find beauty in the breaking, the grace in surrendering to whatever your experience is in the moment, you will find tremendous strength on the other side.

Note: If you are feeling like you really want or need to cry, but the tears just aren’t coming, I have found that a guided breathwork session can be just the ticket.

The world needs you to be strong and brave and radiantly YOU. I trust that by doing this work and digging deeper and reconnecting to ourselves, we are all setting ourselves up to contribute in the most meaningful and impactful way to whatever we are called to create. This is not the easiest or smoothest path, but it is certainly the most rewarding, surprising, and magical. I’m right there with you.

 

Lots of love xx.