Can Your Emotions Make You Well?

Every emotion you experience creates a chemical reaction in your body. And your cells have matching receptors to receive those dispersed chemicals.

We have neuropeptides in our brain. These are molecules used by neurons to communicate throughout the body. Every time we have a thought or feel an emotion these neuropeptides create an assortment of chemicals. These chemicals get dispersed and attach to matching cell receptors throughout the body, most notably in our heart, digestive and immune system.

Our systems and our cells are in constant communication. And our thoughts and emotions play a key role in how these function and are expressed. 

The good news is those receptors aren’t stagnant. Just like we can train our brain to learn a new language or a new skill we can also train it when it comes to our thoughts and those chemical responses. So we notice when we’ve fallen into an old story or an old default script that causes self-doubt, anxiety or feelings of depression. Once we start to notice those old patterns we can begin to choose thoughts that are more positive and supportive in the way we want to feel and live our life. 

The goal isn’t to only ever have positive, happy thoughts. That’s not realistic. It’s to monitor those thoughts. To pay attention to where our mind goes. To not let our minds run on autopilot. To notice when we’re in an old script or a dialogue that isn’t serving us and course correct. 

We think about 70,000 thoughts per day. We need to monitor those. 

This, to me, is the beauty of co-active coaching and why I love the work that I do.  It’s not to be confused with therapy. There’s a definite time and place for that. Co-active coaching is placing focus on the part of your brain where you hold creativity, possibility and your own inner resourcefulness. The things we often forget we even have when we’re stuck in places of anxiety or depression.

Coaching takes you out of your head and into your heart. You know when you have a new idea you initially get super excited about. That quiet voice of how this new idea could be made possible quickly gets drowned out by your ego - the part of our brain that rapidly responds to and squashes that quiet voice of what’s possible for you. The ego list all the reasons of why you can’t or why it’ll never work. It worries about what others will think. You know, that voice. 

Simply by where we place focus, our emotions can make us feel well. How often do we get to place dedicated focus on that quiet little voice of ‘hey this is what I want to do, this is how I want to feel, this is what I want to experience in my life?' This is what coaching can do.

From my own personal experience and road to better health, coaching, mindfulness and proper nutrition have been invaluable. It’s the combination of body with the mind. The two are always in communication with each other and have such an impact our health and wellbeing. 

Now it’s your turn. What one thing do you do for your wellbeing to help you feel well? Share with me in the comments below.  

Are Your Emotions Making You Sick?

"Can someone please get him a sucker?! This boy didn’t cry. You’re so strong, champ.”

or

“Attaboy" (insert a high-five and a tousling of hair), said by a proud parent as they watch their young son get his immunization shot without crying.

The messages are subtle and innocently placed but there they are.  

Part of the human experience includes making meaning out of things. Our brain isn’t satisfied and won’t quiet down until a full story has been scripted. We make meaning out of others comments or reactions to us and the world around us.

From a very young age, through subtleties, we learn how to deal with our emotions. We tell ourselves that some emotions are good while others are bad. How many times have I heard a man say that expressing tender emotion like sadness or pain feels weak?

In those I talk with, extremely rare is the household where sitting with and comfortably talking about uncomfortable feels without judgment or some form of discipline was a household norm. 

Most of us simply weren’t raised to sit with, talk about and be comfortable with feeling the full spectrum of our emotions. It’s a muscle we don’t even know exists, let alone know how to use. 

So as little people we made mental notes about us and our feelings. And we started expressing them outwardly less and less and less. 

Those mental notes over time become visceral. And they create lenses we use to go through life based on our household experiences and the stories we made up about what those experiences meant about us as a person. So as adults we look through life using these decades old lenses. And most of us never take a moment to revisit those old stories, or even be curious about whether or not these stories are actually true. 

We continue going through life with these false stories, this lens created by a little person who lacked perspective, insight and life experience that comes with being grown up. So as adults it doesn’t feel like we’re going through life with a lens. It simply feels like our fate or truth. 

This can create emotional pain. A lot of it. 

One of the first physical symptoms of stuffed down, swept under the rug emotion is anxiety and depression. 

How so?

Swept under the rug, stuffed down emotion leads to illness. It lowers our immune function which in turn increases inflammation in the body. A chronic low grade inflammatory response can manifest itself in a variety of ways (depending on our genetic makeup and environmental exposures) including our brain and nervous system. This will affect our mood and our ability to manage our emotions.

So what do we do?

We have to unlearn not feeling or stuffing down feelings so we can begin to learn how to feel. Without it being overwhelming or like we’ll never be able to come out from it if we allow ourselves to feel. 

Being able to sit with any uncomfortableness of your feelings takes practice. It’s like a muscle that is super weak. We have to practice it to get comfortable with it. 

What Does the Lens Look Like?

Because it’s so visceral it doesn’t feel like you're going through life with a lens, it simply feels like truth. It feels like your fate. So we often don’t even notice that it’s an old script. 

In the face of disappointment your lens will often show up very obviously. It’ll be the first thing that pops into your mind. "People are always….." "I can never……” “Life is always…..” It’ll most likely sound something like that.

There’s nothing wrong with these scripts or lenses. We all have them. The beauty lies in starting to notice them, get curious about them and recognize that quite possibly they aren’t true. 

You can start to put that lens down and pick up a new one. One that's more true and allows you to see yourself in a new light. There’s beauty in this new light. Of this I’m absolutely sure. 

In my next blog post I’ll talk about how sitting with emotion and learning to move through it is so much healthier for you, mentally and physically,  than trying to ignore it. 

To getting curious about you,