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You're listening to the body heal podcast with Dr. Katie demming. I'm your host. And on today's episode, we are going to be talking about emotions. Why processing, and allowing your emotions to move through your body is really important, especially when you're healing. So stay tuned. Today we're talking about emotions, and the importance of processing, and really managing your emotions when you're dealing with a physical illness. And I think the first thing to talk about is that emotions are a normal part of dealing with any illness in your body or trauma that you have emotional healing to do. It is part of us, we are emotional beings. And when we are experiencing something in our life that's either good or not so good. It's important that we process those emotions. So I want to start really by talking about what are emotions, and also what causes us to feel certain things. And the first thing I want to point out is that we talked about fear on episode one, and how we really were dealing with the thoughts that your brain was feeding you that were making you fearful. And so this is an important thing to notice is that your emotions are almost always tied to your thoughts and what you're thinking. So in the episode on fear, we talked about managing those thoughts and kind of dealing with your brain, before you have an emotion that you feel from thinking the thought. But in this episode, what we're going to do is really dive into, okay, what if you're already experiencing emotion, which would have you don't catch it, when it's in, you know, this thought form where it's feeding us something to be scared of, and then you feel it in your body? What if we catch you actually, when you're already experiencing the fear, or, really, we can be talking about any emotion. So this same technique that I'm going to talk about that works with processing fear, also works with any emotion. So emotions are really vibrations in your body. And they're caused, like we said, by thoughts, or sometimes you can have a visceral reaction to something where you just feel fear or whatever emotion just from the stimulus that is incoming. And emotions are basically creating a vibration in our body that makes us feel a certain way. And those emotions actually have impacts on those people, other people around us as well. But we'll talk about that on another episode. In this episode, we really want to talk about, okay, when you're experiencing emotions, how can you manage that. And I think one of the first things to say is that it's really important to feel emotions, and process them. And the reason why is because the emotions can get stuck in our bodies, either in our emotional body and really
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staying with us and causing us to feel that emotion. during times when really, there's no reason to be feeling that emotion, like say that it's fear. If you don't feel it, you can actually continue to carry that emotion around, and it's under the surface for you. Okay, so that's one reason why it's important, just from an emotional standpoint, to be able to process and release because the emotions will stay with you and can affect your emotional responses to things going on in your life. But the second one is that emotions are vibrations, that when they're suppressed, they can be trapped in the body. And this can be related to medical illness. One of the biggest causes of disease or illness is really stress and stress is emotions, like fear, you know, hopelessness overwhelm all in that it in your body from just feeling this over and over again. So, it's, it's really important that we process emotions, both for our physical and for Or our emotional health. So I like to teach a little trick to my patients. And it really is an acronym for the process that I have my patients do when they're processing emotion. And so the first thing that I teach them to do is to notice when they have an emotion in their body, and how do you notice emotions in your body when you feel them? Right. So that's the first thing that I teach them is to feel the emotion and don't push it away, actually just allow it and welcome it to be there. Okay, so that's the first thing is to feel. The second thing that I teach them is to identify the emotion that's causing that feeling in their body. So maybe they're feeling a 10th, kind of a clenching in their chest. And they can feel that it's hot, it's tight, it's kind of radiating across their chest. And that's how it feels. But then, when they think about, okay, what's the emotion that's causing this could be anything, right? But they're able to tune in and say, Okay, what I'm feeling is actually fear, or what I'm feeling is guilt, or what I'm feeling is sadness, or grief. So, really kind of identifying, okay, what emotion is causing this physical feeling in my body. So that's the second thing that I have them do. The third thing is I have them allow the emotion, just allow it to be there. And the way that I find is the most effective in the allowing portion is to take nice, easy deep breaths in through your nose, and then out through your mouth. And you just do that a few times really allowing the emotion to be there. Like I said before, welcoming it in making it feel like it's valid and allowed in your space and really accepted. Okay, so the first thing was, they're going to feel it in their body. Where is it? What does it feel like? What's the intensity? Does it move, that he was identifying the emotion that's associated with that feeling. And then the third thing was allow, which is just deep breathing into the emotion. And honestly, you don't have to do that for super long. Usually by like, three, four brass, you're starting to notice that the feeling or emotion starts to dissipate, it's not going to last forever. If you allow it and you breathe into it, it usually will subside or at least go down to like less than 20% of what it started at, within three to four breaths. And once they've done that, then I have them let it go. And what I have them visualize is once they've gotten that emotion down to like 20% of what it started, as I imagine have them imagine the emotion just washing off to them and into the earth. So just really letting that emotion go down into the earth and grounding it into the earth. And so that's the process, it's actually really easy. The acronym is field, F, E, A, l. f is for feel it in your body. E is what is the emotion, identify the emotion associated with it with that feeling. And this is one place where people sometimes get stuck. So don't get too focused on identifying the emotion. If you can't say exactly what it is, you can say generally doesn't feel good or something like that, and then just move on to allowing, which is a and then l let it go. So f e a, l is the acronym. And this is just a really good way for you to quickly identify and allow and process your emotions. And you can learn to do this so that it just takes a minute. You know, I do this throughout my day. I'll be grocery shopping or something. I feel like this happened a couple weeks ago, I was in grocery shopping and something reminded me of my kids and all of a sudden they felt guilty about something. And I was just like pushing my cart through Trader Joe's and I was like oh wow, like I'm feeling like this tightening inside of me and and so I just like noticed and went into that. Okay, what am I feeling and I was feeling this kind of Chai weakness in my upper abdomen. And then I said, Okay, what emotion Am I feeling right now. And that's when it came up that I was like, Oh, I'm feeling guilty about something with my kids like, now I can't remember what I was feeling guilty about. But I noticed I'm like, okay, that's guilt for me. And then I just as I was pushing my shopping cart through the store, I just breathed into it and allowed it, and it dissipated. And then when I got it down to the point where I felt good, grounding it, I just let it go into the earth. And so that took me like, maybe 30 seconds. And you can do that too, you can do it, use it all throughout your day, it becomes like a really great tool to process and release your emotions. But it's also a great way to get in tune with what emotions are you feeling. Because that's one of the things that sometimes happens as people start to try, or I guess not try, it's not the right word. As they start to get in touch with their emotions, they may notice that they've really numbed them themselves out, and they're not feeling them. And so this is a good way that you can cultivate feeling your emotions. And sometimes if people have numbed themselves, it's often to negative emotions, but they may still have some that they can access, like happiness or gratitude. And so what I would say is, if you know that you are having trouble identifying your emotions is to really find one that comes through easily. And then create a thought in your mind around that emotion that would make you feel excited or happy or grateful, or whatever it is for you. And then practice it with that. And what you'll do is you're starting to create awareness and connection with your body, one of the things that happens for a lot of us is not only do we numb access to our emotions, and feel them less fully, but we also often will disconnect from our body. So we'll separate our thinking from what's going on in our body, and really our true power to live our most full life and like, really experience life is when we are fully integrated. And where we are connected to our body where we can feel the emotions that are occurring, and then allowing them to pass through us, this is such a powerful skill. And it's so easy. So I wanted to share that with us. So that you had a way to really, number one, start to identify emotions that are coming up. Number two,
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processing them and moving them through your body. And then three, gaining some confidence around experiencing emotions. Because one of the things that happens for many of us is that we get afraid, like, I'm afraid to start crying, because I'm just never going to stop. And I'm just going to be this blubbering puddle on the ground, or I don't want to get angry, because I'll just flip my lid and I and I'll kind of let loose on someone. What I want to help you do is connect to your emotions, and also learn to experience and allow them and know that you can stay in command. I didn't say control because I think control is an illusion. We don't really control anything. But I think really what people worry about with emotions is losing command of kind of being in charge of where things go. And so I want to teach you that that's a skill that you can build. It's a muscle. The more you use it, the better you're going to get at really experiencing your emotions. So I hope that that's helpful for you. I would love to have you give us a five star rating. If you're enjoying the show. Please subscribe. Please tell your friends. We are doing short format to just give quick nuggets of learning. They're going to help you heal, whether you're dealing with a physical illness or working through emotional trauma. I want to give you quick wins. I want to give you things that I teach my patients in five minutes that can get them going and get through this next phase or challenge that they're experiencing. So hopefully it's helpful for you. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Okay, this is Dr. Katie Deming and thank you for listening to the body heal podcast. If you've gotten value from today's episode, I'd love for you to share it with your friends and loved ones helped me create more impact around the world. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram or Facebook and visit Katy Deming comm for more information on how to work with me
