Dr. Candace Pert writes about “the molecules of emotion,” in her book of the same name. I highly recommend it if you are interested in the mind-body-spirit connection. The reason I bring this up today is I would like to ask you, how do your emotions feel?

How does one “get in touch” with one’s own emotions, besides simply experiencing them? For example, if I feel anger, I can usually recognize it pretty quickly by not only my thoughts, as in “what an a@%hole!”, but also by the feelings in my body. My breathing gets shallow, my head seems to swell, my muscles tense up, and I feel an unpleasant kind of shiver going through my body. Likewise, if I’m feeling tenderness and love, the kind I feel about my cat Man Ray and small children, I feel my heart welling up, my face softening and smiling, and a deep sigh emerging from within me. Lust feels much different, as does meditation, or envy, or despair. All these emotions are expressed not only mentally, but also by our physical bodies.

But we usually ignore those physical symptoms of emotion, and focus on our thoughts only. We “mentalize” our body/spirit experience of emotion, and in doing so, we sometimes actually end up hanging on to the physical effects of the emotion much longer than we need to. This often happens at work! In our need to behave “appropriately,” or “professionally,” we often smile when we want to scowl, speak softly when we want to shout, or even stay tight-lipped when we want to burst out laughing. Gentle readers, the more you do this, over the years these stuffed down emotions will really clog up your energetic system!

I do want to be clear about one thing, though, and that’s the expression of rage. Flying off the handle, screaming and yelling and having temper tantrums, just because you feel like doing it, is not appropriate or healthy. Tantrums, or becoming “escalated,” leave you and whoever has to witness or bear the brunt of them, feeling worse, not better. You end up having to apologize for acting like a jerk, you reduce your credibility, you end up having other people trust you less and feel less safe with you in communicating honestly, and you end up harming your health. There are healthy ways to experience anger, but when you are crossing the line into rage, you need to get that taken care of and start changing your behavior immediately.

Rage aside, when our “mind chatter” gets so loud that it all just turns into white noise and we have no idea where we are, a helpful thing to do is to just sit or lie down in a quiet, private space. Mentally scan your body and notice the sensations. Then, ask the sensation what emotion it is connected with. Churning bowels and a sour stomach? What emotion is your body trying to communicate? Tense shoulders and a headache? What’s the emotion? Don’t ask your body why it feels that way, because that just gets you into the “mentalizing” trap again. Just ask what emotion it is trying to express, and go from there. The answers may surprise you.

When you get an answer, then give your body permission to experience the emotion fully and completely, until it has completely run its course. In other words, if your body responds “grief,” allow your body to experience grief in its totality. I promise, it will not engulf you completely, and it will pass in time. Just remember, though, to give yourself plenty of time and privacy. Do not rush this process, and don’t do it just before you have to run out the door!

When you have checked in with your body and your emotions completely, then ask yourself what feeling you would like to experience right now. Joy, perhaps? Or maybe contentment, or excitement, or optimism? Just pick a pleasant emotion, and tell your body to experience it. If it doesn’t come fairly soon, double-check to see if you haven’t missed any other feelings that haven’t been addressed yet. Repeat the process, until you can physically experience the positive emotions you desire.

Good luck!