So you’ve had this health issue you’ve been trying to resolve for some time now!
You ensure that exercise is part of maintaining your health & you know better than eating too much processed food, but why are you not able to resolve this aspect of your health? Is it the weight that you can’t shift around your stomach? Is the fatigue that you feel weighs heavy on your shoulders? Or maybe this deep feeling of sadness?
I hear many stories, particularly from women who are working really hard to strive for optimal health while balancing their career, family & social life and it breaks my heart to know how difficult it is with no awareness, to really go deep into making changes to the one aspect that will set us free. Dealing with our emotions.
Even stating it this way, sets the stage for how we normally address our emotions, take this thing that’s bothering us, put it in a drawer somewhere and vow to come back to it when we have time. However, this is exactly why our un-dealt emotions stay deep in our closets, festering away like an apple we forgot about in the bottom of our bag until one day we smell something’s not quite right!
Our gut is known as our second brain (there are over 200 million neurons in our gut and billions of bacteria that are all communicating with our brain). Our brain has a direct connection to all the sensors in our gut so it’s no wonder that the “butterflies in your stomach” or the “gut instinct” telling you that you have to take action is the reality of what is happening to us or “for us”.
So when I spoke to a mother recently about the stress she was experiencing from her poor digestion, her lack of weight loss despite big changes to her diet & exercise, but how nothing had worked for her since she had her son, I knew instantly there was a trauma not dealt with and an emotion that had not been given the attention it deserved. In trying to “move on” she hadn’t addressed an early scare at child-birth that had left her thinking she was a bad mum and just like that rotten apple, she had been carrying this around with her until she realised something was wrong.
In this “Aha” moment we were able to link the emotion she felt at the time to the perceived stress the body had received and not been given a chance to address.
So how to address these emotions? Just like an upset child who needs love, it’s important to sit with the emotion, feel it in the body…is it pounding in the stomach? Is it a tightness in your chest? Sit with silence and resist the urge when it comes up to move on, e.g. picking up your phone or getting something to eat. Instead, talk to the emotion like you would do a small child and understand why it’s there and empathise and address the next steps. Only by creating an awareness, by truly owning our emotions and acknowledging that they too are part of us can we look to set ourselves free from the “heavy weight” they hold with us.
Do share this article with anyone you believe would like the support to reach their health goals. You can watch my short video on my facebook page vlog and be sure to sign up for my newsletter at elika.co
