Exploring the Emotional Body
A Vision
What would a world look like where people live in an open state, an internal flow, and with a direct access to their connection with something higher – Spirit, Love, Truth, the Source …?
What would it take for all of us to accept our humanness, especially our emotions, and learn how to take care of that part of ourselves, like we learned how to exercise, eat healthy, and all the other ways we take care of our physical body?
I can imagine a world like this – where all people live with an open emotional body, connected within themselves and open to each other.
This article is an excerpt from the first chapter of a book I am writing on the emotional body.
My Experience
When I was young, I didn’t know how to deal with emotions, probably like many of us. I was left to my own devices and learned from those around me. That meant keeping most everything inside, hiding or suppressing anything emotional, because those were the examples I saw. In my teens I had high blood pressure and a doctor told me, “You are under a lot of stress. I won’t give you any medication because that won’t help, but you need to do something about your stress.”
I didn’t really know what he meant, but the high blood pressure and stress followed me for many years. I never cried or showed any emotion with pain, except for those extreme times when I was injured during a soccer match, for example, but even then – toughing it out was the way to go.
At 19 years old I did a weekend workshop. Something happened and I found myself crying uncontrollably. It went on for quite a while and after I was done crying, I felt a sensation of peace and calm inside that I had never experienced before. I experienced an openness and a desire to connect with others that was very new. I knew it had something to do with all these emotions coming out, but I had no clue about what really happened. What I was left with though was a feeling of searching for something more. The peace and calm that I had experienced had left a deep impression on me and my spiritual search began.
My name is Dove Mahnke and I am a neuromuscular therapist. I have been working with people in chronic pain conditions for over 30 years. In addition, I have been facilitating seminars and workshops that give people tools to open and connect more deeply with their true part and Spirit, or whatever people relate to spiritually, for over 25 years. Caring for and opening the emotional body is an essential part of these events.
The stigma around emotions
When it comes to emotions, because of most people’s upbringing, there is a stigma around the emotional body. For many men it is considered weak to show any emotion and therefore we keep it all inside. For women only certain emotions are acceptable to show openly, otherwise they get labeled in ways that no one wants to be known as.
Seeing how much emotional repression affects not only our physical body, but our mood, our hormonal balance, mental and psychological states, and our ability to connect more deeply, I asked myself “What can I do to help get rid of this stigma around the emotional body and make it a more matter of fact part of who we are as human beings?”
The emotional body’s function within the whole human makeup
I have learned a lot about the human body in my years as a neuromuscular therapist. Within our physical body are our skeletal system, muscles, various other soft tissues, and our organs. Our physical body is regulated by specific parts of our brain and our nervous system. Consider the tension of all body tissues as an example. A certain amount of tension is necessary just for us to stand or sit upright, and a specific part of our brain regulates how much of that tension is needed.
As humans we are also given an emotional body. And we all deal with emotions. Some pleasant, some not so pleasant, but they are all emotions.
Just like our physical body, our emotional body is regulated by a specific part of our brain called the limbic system. Besides various other functions, the limbic system mainly regulates our emotions and emotional responses.
Sometimes our emotional body is sending signals to our body that have us feel good, happy, elated. Our senses are heightened, and we feel alive.
For example, when we are getting to know someone and fall in love – a specific set of neurochemicals and hormones are released, and we get to feel what we learned to call love. We learn to call love a state of joy, and we do the same with other feelings that make us feel good. What is actually happening is that we get to live in a heightened state of well-being.
For many people, this becomes the preferred way to feel, and, through the influences of both traditional and modern society, we have learned that feeling this way is a true state…and we should try and live in this state all the time.
But our emotional body is meant to experience so much more than just one particular state.
What happens when we don’t want to feel something?
Because it doesn’t feel so easy when we are dealing with the more intense emotions, we create a preference and start to repress states other than what makes us feel good.
When we look at the experience of “depression,” often times what is happening is that we are depressing or pushing down emotions that we don’t want to feel. This does not allow our emotions to move, and we find ourselves with increased physical, psychological, or emotional tension. I know that I am simplifying here, but I hope this viewpoint can provide another way of looking at “de-pression.”
Living from these emotional state preferences – allowing the “feel good” emotions and suppressing the “feel bad” emotions – limits our openness toward ourselves, others and the world around us. When our emotional body can’t fully express itself, it directly affects our mindset, which starts to shrink and becomes smaller than what it could be. You could say that we become less open minded.
A good example of this is the emotion of fear. How often do we spend time and energy to suppress fear, so we don’t have to feel it? But if fear is suppressed and doesn’t move, then the intensity of the fear increases. Physical tension rises, and it also starts to affect our mindset. Worry, anxiety, fear-based thoughts and thought loops become more prevalent in our mind. We are more easily triggered into a fear response by our circumstances.
In contrast, an open emotional body – where we allow feelings like fear to move – supports a calm mind and allows for living in a more receptive state, open to life and Spirit. When we don’t shy away from experiencing the full range of emotions, it is much easier to live from a connected place within.
Tools to help you open your emotional body
🍃Practices🍃
Connect with Your Desire: Take some time to feel your desire for opening your emotional body and how that could impact areas of your life. For example, in your well-being or your relationship with others.
Journal: To become more aware of your emotional body, take some time each day to journal. See below for journaling questions.
Feel and Release: Choose one emotion you've been avoiding, and give yourself permission to feel and release it, even if just for a few moments.
Meditate: Let meditation support you to open your emotional body. See below for information on our next in-person Retreat.
📝 Journaling Questions📝
Which emotions have you been pushing down or avoiding? Let them come to the surface, and acknowledge their presence.
How has avoiding emotions impacted your physical well-being?
How has avoiding feelings affected your mental state and outlook on life?
🕺🏽💃🏾🧘🏾♀️ Attend The Next Retreat 🕺🏽💃🏾🧘🏾♀️
Participate in our next in-person Retreat, May 30-June 2, 2024 to learn in-depth how to use the Heart of the Matter Meditation to open your emotional body.
🎧Listen to a meditation🎧
Free up your Emotional Body is a 30-minute meditation that you can use to set an intention to open up and free up your emotional body and release any build-up stress.
By Dove Mahnke