How to manage your emotions?
Mastering and managing our emotions is important for our mental and relational health, but also for our physical and physiological health. In Chinese medicine, a link exists between emotions, meridians and organs. To better understand what is going on inside us allows us to better manage our emotions. And thus, to release them, to express them, to transform them… for more inner peace and serenity!
What is an emotion?
Emotions are part of our human experience.
It is by no means a question of not feeling them anymore, or of being done with them. But rather to know how to read them. This allows us to learn valuable lessons about what we are experiencing inside. And to understand what affects us in a situation, and why.
Nobody is born knowing how to manage his or her emotions. This is learned! Either in our education, or by conditioning. Indeed, it is from the very small that we integrate patterns of functioning. And it is by observing the reactions of our entourage that we learn.
How do we learn to manage our emotions?
The child makes links between his emotions, their expression and the reaction of his environment. Thus, he will adapt his behaviors to meet his immediate needs. In cases where the child lives in an emotionally dysfunctional climate, physical and/or psychological traumas, this will affect the way in which the child manages his emotions as an adult.
For example, a lack of communication in the family, a prohibition to express emotions. Or frequent conflicts, a stressful life environment…
Identify your emotions
When we experience an emotion, there is a physical / physiological reaction in your body. I would also talk about the link between emotions and sensory stimuli. Because as I explained above, this is also how we learn to identify our emotions. There is a link between the external and internal world.
To simplify things, when a sense is stimulated, the brain receives information from the nervous system. It then issues a succession of commands, allowing appropriate reactions to the situation.
Our body has a very logical way of functioning, which is to maintain your balance, and also to keep you alive. If there is a reaction of the body, it is because it has to be. The body always has its coherence, which we are not always aware of… Because we have a large number of subconscious and automatic reactions.
Understanding our emotions
Then, each emotion has also reason to be. It can be perceived as positive or negative. And this is completely subjective because each individual reacts completely differently to stimuli. And this, according to its history, its personality.
So, when you experience an emotion, you can take the time to observe what is going on inside you. This allows you to understand your body and how it reacts to situations. For example, a person who is anxious and knows how to recognize the first signs of an anxiety attack in his or her body will be able to stop it more easily before the physiological process has already begun.
What happens in the body
For example, fear often causes you to sweat. Sadness causes you to curl up. Anxiety can create tremors. Joy causes a lot of heat. Anger can cause your face to swell and redden. Worry creates a tightness in the chest or a headache.
When you have made the connection between the emotion and your body’s reaction, you may be able to stop the conditioned automatic reaction. And thus, do your best to act more consciously. The next step, after the identification, will then be how to manage and control your emotional upsurges. What I explain below, in part.
Of course, I don’t go as far in an article as I do in a training session or in a 1:1 consultation in person or online! Entrepreneurs also come to me to learn how to manage their emotions. Or their “mindset”, or to understand what is going on in the body in order to be more aligned. As well as couples wishing to better understand what is going on in them and in their partner.
There, it is my approach of yoga tantra that helps. You can contact me to talk about it, I have helped many men, women and couples to communicate better. And even overcome old traumas. Alone or together, with exercises based on listening to body language…
Indeed, it is important to manage one’s emotions in order to succeed. Professionally, socially, and in love!
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The vision of Chinese medicine
The 7 emotions in Chinese medicine
- Worry (sī; 思)
- Sadness (bēi; 悲)
- Fear (kǒng; 恐)
- Fear (jīng; 惊)
- Joy (xǐ; 喜)
- Anger (nù; 怒)
- Anxiety (yōu; 忧)
The link with our organs
The 7 emotions associated with the 5 Yin organs:
- Worry is associated with the spleen
- Sadness is associated with the Lungs
- Fear is associated with the Kidneys
- Fear is associated with the kidneys
- Joy is associated with the heart
- Anger is associated with the liver
- Anxiety is associated with the lungs
How to balance our emotions
When Chinese medicine advises you to do a seasonal energy balancing, it is not to encourage you to consult. Rather, it is to encourage you to take the habit of being responsible for your health and in prevention. Because in oriental medicine, as well as in many alternative or soft medicines*, we are in a logic of regular maintenance of the being. Thus, treating as you go along becomes easier and does not tire the body.
Incidentally, high level athletes are often also in this process. For example, for us dancers, it is only normal to go to the osteopath and the physiotherapist regularly! As well as receiving massages, energy rebalancing… Or working on cellular memories with a kinesiologist. This allows you not to keep marks of your injuries that would hinder the quality of your movements.
* everything is complementary, without opposition or comparison. Alternative medicine is therefore an abuse of language, although common today.
The 5 movements in traditional Chinese medicine
Here are some principles that can help you:
- Confidence calms Fear, and allows to correct Patience.
- Patience calms Anger, and allows to readjust Determination.
- Determination reframes Exaltation and allows to anchor Joy.
- Joy calms Obsession and allows to calm Perseverance.
- Perseverance overcomes Sadness by rekindling Confidence.
If you feel ready, in kinesiology (3 in 1 concept) we work on balancing emotions in the body. Both physically with its massage and chiropractic part; and psycho-emotionally. And this, by going to release the blockages kept in memory in the body.
Thus, it allows you to “de-program” your old patterns of functioning, to integrate new ones. In particular, thanks to a method coming from EMDR, and others that I have developed through practice and experience.
Tips and secrets to better manage your emotions
Do not stifle your emotions: express them
It is of course a matter of expressing them ecologically and already to oneself. Then share them with others in a non-violent way. For this, you can read my article on how to communicate your needs.
Indeed, if you repress your emotions, it happens the syndrome of the pressure cooker as I call it. Everything accumulates, and one day, it must come out to restore the balance! And generally, it is with strong intensity such as anger. However, for some people, it can translate into anxiety attacks, obsessions or addictions. But also, by stomach aches and digestion problems etc.
For indeed, everything that is not expressed must come out of oneself… And if it is not done consciously, it will be subconsciously, and most often through the body. This is what we call somatization. And if the body has accumulated too much over the years, this can be the cause of chronic health problems.
Your emotions affect your being positively or negatively
In a consultation, during a shiatsu massage or a balancing in kinesiology, it is not uncommon to find imbalances in the organs, tensions in the tissues, in the muscles. In dance therapy and Brain gym kinesthetic education, I also notice specific postures showing an important emotional protection of the individual.
And in sonotherapy or in reiki therapy, I notice the impact of emotions on the energy balance of the person. In particular at the level of the haras, the chakras, and the whole of the subtle bodies.
In conclusion: balancing and managing your emotions is very important for good health and more well-being in your life! Think about releasing them regularly to avoid accumulating them in you and somatizing.
Release your emotions regularly
Take time each week to let go of your emotions. This is especially important for all hypersensitive people, because they tend to accumulate feelings and emotions. And this is true whether it’s their own or others’. For example, you can:
- Practice meditation,
- Dance or movement therapy, do-in,
- Self-hypnosis,
- Listen to relaxing music,
- Learn Reiki to do self-care
- Taking care of yourself by giving yourself a massage, a time for yourself in nature
- Transform your negative emotions into positive ones
How to transform its emotions?
I am often asked how to “transform my emotions”, or “not to get angry”, or “to worry about nothing”. It is a daily work. Because before we know how to do something, we don’t know! So, it is a matter of learning, or rather relearning differently.
Go back to the beginning of this article:
- Identify your emotions
- Study the vocabulary of emotions
- Recognize them in the body
- Express them ecologically
- Release them in a gentle and creative way
- Consult regularly for a rebalancing (and avoid the accumulation of memories)
- Learn and train yourself in methods to improve your well-being
To learn more, contact me! I am delighted to share with you all that I have understood on the subject… and continue to enrich myself every day.
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I must say that all creative disciplines have helped me a lot in the past: because in theater it is imperative to understand and manage your emotions in order to act! And personal and spiritual development with the discovery of Reiki afterwards gave me all the tools I needed: meditation, self-care, and emotion management, the 5 principles of life…
Which by the way start with “just today, I don’t get angry”. Thank you Usui sensei, saying this made me realize that I was committed to being more aware of my responsibility towards my emotions! Learning Reiki is not just about “putting your hands on and healing”. It is about receiving tools and a philosophy of life, to be applied for your own well-being and that of the living beings around you.
Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, more present in Asia, include this notion of balance and temperance. This is very important for the maintenance of the balance of the yin yang polarities, present in all things in this world. Its functioning is a system of forces, which balance each other. Nothing is dissociated: everything works together, in interrelation.
The emotional causes of our diseases
The emotional language of the body
The body speaks to us constantly, but do we know how to listen to it? Indeed, it is not always easy to decipher this body language, which personally fascinates me! I must say that it is thanks to a better understanding of my body that I have succeeded in loving it. And also to master it (with dance), to listen to it, to pamper it as my most precious friend. Because a body, we have only one for all this life, we can’t go to the store to exchange it.
Have you also noticed how we change physically according to what we live? How our body expresses exactly what we feel when our words try to hide it? The human being is complex… In fact, since I was a little girl, I found it easier to read a body than to read words!
Very often, we become experts in what we had the most difficulty in before… Because by working on something to learn it, we develop wonderful potentials!
And you, has it always been easy for you to decode your emotions? To understand your body? To make the link between the two?
Feel free to share your experience or your problems in the comments below!
And if you know someone who is having difficulties managing their emotions, share this article with them!
Don’t hesitate to contact you, I’m happy to be there for you and your family, for a more harmonious world 🙂
