Our emotional health involves the feeling aspect of self and the neurophysiological changes that take place within the individual in response to various events or situations that they experience, whether good, bad or indifferent. Our emotions are a beautiful gift if we learn to understand how to process them in a way that serves us better, and the greater good of the community and the wider aspects of the world. If we develop emotional intelligence then not only will we enjoy life and feel better able to soothe ourselves through the difficult emotional experiences that we all face, we will also be able to ‘read’ and understand others more easily too. If we learn to understand emotions in an intentional way and adopt skills and techniques to manage them effectively then we will enhance our experience of daily joy and happiness significantly.

Your response to anything, is everything & how you do anything is how you do everything

That wasn’t meant to be a tongue twister but connecting the 2 different sayings together actually makes us think more deeply about what is being said. So take a moment and breathe ~ and now read it again, and keep reading the quote until you know it’s dropped deeper into your understanding. We’ve talked before about learning how to respond to something/someone rather than react. Take a moment to breathe and simply feel, accepting where you’re at as you won’t be there forever. Sometimes we have to learn to let go as what we try and resist we experience more of in life. You’re not accepting that negative feelings or experiences are ok (although in reality they are a natural part of life), you’re accepting that this where you’re at at the moment, and that is ok!

Within embracing a more intentional approach to understanding your feelings and subsequent emotions you will have the added joy of no longer taking how others behave around you personally. We can often exhaust ourselves emotionally by being negatively affected by the emotions of those we come into contact with and especially those we are in relationship with. If you’re an empath like me then internalising the emotional presentation of others can have a devastating effect on your mental and emotional state, as some times you don’t know whose emotions you’re feeling and you can think that they’re ALL yours.

When they’re not!

Learning skills and techniques that, once adopted into your everyday life, become a natural process for you will breathe life into your weary and exhausted state. It will breathe life into you emotionally and mentally, but it will also breathe life into you physically and spiritually. Your emotional life is a powerful force for good or bad and it is within your ability to do something about. It can, and does, take a tremendous amount of courage though to become more consciously aware of this aspect of yourself, but the rewards and benefits outweigh the difficulties; and the difficulties, although extremely painful, become the gifts that shape us into being the gift we always were created to be in the world.

Despite the need to be more consciously aware of your emotional health to improve your well-being there is still the need to self soothe and be gentle with yourself, especially now as we begin to emerge from the isolation of the pandemic. A dear friend and gifted poet, Joanna Hargreaves, recently wrote this and I thought I’d share it with you today. May it bless you as it blessed me!

Until next week, lots of love and blessings, Sam x