To me, emotions are most often our bodies reaction to thoughts.
If the thoughts are outdated or otherwise untrue, our reactions may not serve.
If we are unaware of the thoughts or the reaction, we can end up being emotionally hijacked, which rarely ends well.
I believe awareness is curative and transformative.
Whether it is our habitual thoughts, our old wounds, or the postures where we have long stored our unreleased emotions in our body, the arrival of awareness brings up back to choice.
If the reaction serves us, great.
If it does not, then any of these approaches will help:
- Process or somatic coaching to truly feel and dissipate the emotion.
- Journaling to further explore, excavate and express the emotions.
- Regular exercise to shift you out of the fight or flight reaction, to the relaxation response.
- Any regular mindfulness practice.
- Connecting to an emotion of gratitude or optimism.
As the authors of A GENERAL THEORY OF LOVE (Drs. Lewis, Amini, Lannon) teach, “Emotional impressions shrug off insight but yield to a different persuasion: the force of another person’s Attractors {established neural responses} reaching through the doorway of a limbic connection {relationship}.”
This means, we revise our behavior best through emotional connections to others who have different behaviors – not through the power of reason or will.
This points to the importance of ongoing relationships with people {friends, mentors, coaches} who exhibit the behaviors we seek to adapt.
Finally, for the sake of any new coaches who may not understand the legal division between coaching and therapy, in most jurisdiction we coaches must refrain from what is termed "emotional counselling" which is often interpreted as doing personal archeology into the old emotions of our clients.
Cheers,
Steve Mitten
http://www.acoach4u.com
http://www.principalevolutions.com
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