How many times do we feel different emotions throughout the day? We may wake up feeling sad, then something happens that brightens our day, later on we may get irritated or frustrated on the way to work, you get the picture. Did you know the average person experiences more than 30 emotions within a 24 hour period?
This wouldn’t pose any issue if we went from feeling happy, to loving, to trusting and back to joy again, yet when we experience those that have a negative connotation, we tend to feel guilty about it. These may include sadness, anger, resentment, resistance and fear, really all of the emotions that lie outside of our core values. Well, here’s the good news: It’s OK to feel that way! Negative emotions are not bad – they are simply a reaction to an event, and the experience actually helps us to become stronger and more resilient.
When you experience a negative emotion, instead of getting stuck there or beating yourself up about it, simply acknowledge the emotion. Allow yourself to feel through the emotion. It could be a few minutes, or it might only take a couple of seconds to shift.
Here’s a little technique I learned during my experience with Dr. Aidan Kinsella at Verve Wellness Studio. Place your hands over your heart and say “Right now I feel…” and then state the negative emotion. Connect to your heart and allow yourself to just feel. Once you feel through the emotion, you become open and allow yourself to receive instead of being closed off with walls up around you.
(The technique is called Somatic Respiratory Integration, and was developed by Dr. Donald Epstein, D.C, who is also the author of the Twelve Stages of Healing and Healing Myths, Healing Magic)