Lockdown is not nice! It’s limiting, restrictive and damn frustrating!
A physical lockdown is one thing, but some people are in a permanent ‘emotional lockdown’, everyday of their lives, and they don’t even know it!
Let me explain…
One of the greatest challenges I’ve had as a performance coach over the years, is not teaching clients how to project their voice across the room, but to help people ‘feel and express their emotions”!
Some people squirm or freeze up at the idea, or simply can’t.
Why?
1. It’s too painful or feels uneasy. It’s easier to avoid feeling our feelings.
2. We are protecting ourselves from shame, shyness or ‘saving face’
3. We’re simply conditioned to do this. We have learned from society, culture or our upbringing not to show our feelings.
It’s so habitual, we don’t even realise we do it.
But expressing your feelings is crucial, to connect with others!
Whether it’s with your audience, in business, through communication or with a loved one.
By allowing yourself to get in touch with your emotions and get comfortable with them (rather than bottling them up inside), you can overcome your inability or fear to express them, when it matters most.
FEELING your feelings is the doorway to your soul.
It really is. If you allow yourself to acknowledge and fully feel your feelings then you will achieve;
- More authentic truthful communication
- Greater connection with your personal artistry and creativity
- Deeper or more impactful connection with others, loved ones or your audience.
And we all know what happens when we truly connect – when we cut through all the crap and take off our ‘masks’ of shame and self protection. We form lasting relationships. With ourselves and others! People want to connect with us!
So ask yourself – are you in an emotional lockdown?
In your creativity, in your performance, in your career or in your personal life?
If you don’t process your emotions, you just store them up inside. They literally get stuck inside your body.
So you must learn to feel them, accept them and process them out!
Without getting bogged down by the ‘story’ attached to your emotions. The story we create around our feelings are often the problem – not the emotion itself.
So having a regular practice in your life that helps you alleviate emotional stress is vital in keeping your creativity, connections and communication ‘alive and well’.
When emotions arise – Doing an ‘EMOTIONAL DROP THROUGH EXERCISE’ can help you mange your emotions.
Here’s your exercise – try following this process in your own time:
Close your eyes, soften your jaw, your tongue and teeth, drop and soften your shoulders. Breathe deep expanding your diaphragm, breathing in and out towards the bottom of your lungs.
Bring your awareness inwards and simply notice any tension you are holding onto.
And with your awareness, go to that part of your body that is tense. Ask that area;
What am I feeling in this part of my body? What emotion is here?
Get still and give yourself time to listen, it could be loud or as quiet as a whisper. Listen with you inner voice or your intuition – not your mind!
Sometimes this requires you to soften that part of your body so that you can actually allow it to ‘speak to you’.
You may feel a wave of emotion come to the surface. Don’t fear or avoid this.
It will only take about 30 to 60 seconds for the emotional energy to pass through your nervous system!
Emotions are just waves of emotional energy giving you information about yourself.
Rather than feel afraid or get caught up in the emotional story, simply breathe through it, as it’s vital to help you release it from your body.
Then after a minute or 2 you may notice the emotional intensity has subsided. This is good, so just relax.
Then ask yourself what new emotion is now being revealed?
What is the next emotional layer sitting just below the surface of this physical pain or tension in my body?
Allow the emotion to reveal itself and breathe through it. Just be present with it. You may even intensify it for a moment so it can be fully felt and processed out!
Continue working through the emotional layers, so you can slowly reveal them and release them. Without ever getting into their history or story.
Eventually you will come to a place where you feel more calm and relaxed, where you sense you have released enough of the emotional energy.
Be kind and gentle with yourself throughout the day, as your emotions can take time to settle. But better than keeping them bottled up inside!
This exercise is not intended as therapy, but rather a somatic body exercise of self-awareness and release. Always consider seeking professional advice if you are struggling right now.
You see we store layers of emotion.
Often our anger is really a cover for a deep sadness or grief
Or sadness is a cover for shame
Or the joy we constantly exude could be a cover for deep fear
We have mostly been conditioned to believe that ‘bad’ or negative emotions should be avoided because they feel bad. The key is to learn to accept all the emotions we experience. The full gamut. Don’t pick and choose. Don’t avoid.
Why not your story?
Try to avoid getting caught up in thoughts which take you back to your past stress and pain that you’ve experienced and keep dwelling on. It’s usually the stories that keep us in pain, not the emotion. The emotion is simply the trigger. It is simply the messenger that tells us something within us is unsettled, something needs to shift, grow or needs to change. So the key is to listen rather than resist.
When we listen, we can start to become more truthfully expressed and change our whole lives!
This is one of the most profound healing tools I personally use regularly and one that I use in my AYV work.
If you would like to know more about these profound emotional release techniques that I use in my Awaken Your Voice work and courses, please feel free to contact me directly so you too can have some useful and highly effective tools to use every day of your life.
To manage the anxiety, stress and pain an emotional lockdown can cause.
To be the open, glowing artist or person you long to be!
Please click on the link below for your free 30 minute discovery session to discuss how these tools can be useful for you.
All you need to do is BOOK A FREE 30 MINUTE DISCOVERY SESSION HERE
Danielle
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