When I was growing up, I was taught that my emotions were a problem, a weakness, a part of who I was that needed to be fixed. So I resisted my emotional self time and again- keeping in tears and sobs, holding my breath and tongue, telling myself to hold it together. I was taught that living present in my emotions meant “losing it,” being crazy, irrational, annoying, overbearing and ridiculous. I have memories of my parents shaming me for my tears, with repeated phrases that rooted in the command of “stop being so emotional”. This is something I have carried inside me throughout my lifetime making me deny that- I am an emotional being.  This is something we are all conditioned to believe, reinforced by societal stigmas around emotions. More and more I have allowed myself to realize that my emotional self is a part of my power of being. That I am called to feel others through my sensitivity and understanding of my own feelings. My emotions ask me to be true to them to be fully present in them. And the benefits of this are limitless as they give way to my ability to be my whole and truest self as a human;  to shed the contrived mechanisms that have restricted me (like all of us) from being true to the emotional being within has brought immense liberation. It has allowed me the opportunity to connect to everyone I encounter from a place beyond what I have ever had words for- it allows me to connect from a place of spirit where my vulnerability is awakened. And to be vulnerable is such a powerful thing, it may be the most powerful thing, because it has been kept buried deep inside so many of us, and to see it emerge is something rare, something precious, something sacred.

When our emotional selves are given the permission to live, they manifest in physical expressions that engage our entire bodies, awaken our minds to connecting in memory and understanding and gives way for our spirits to release- tears, laughter, change of breath. These are all so sacred.

Tears in particular for me are such powerful physical manifestations of the spirit. The outward flow of the divine waters from within us. Water is healing, tears are spirit healing. And when we are vulnerable in this way, when we let our tears surface from within us, we express what our words may not be able to speak with clarity, and we create an opening to exchanging with others where they feel safety and love to do the same.

In understanding my emotional being, I allow myself the awareness of the emotions as they emerge, knowing they are not arbitrary, but are truth emerging. The awareness is not to then control my emotional being, but to be present with her, to nurture her and to not be ashamed or fearful of her being present with others. And I am teaching myself to navigate around when others present their emotions to me and how to hold space for them and embrace the courage of bringing them forth without in the process taking them as my own. I’m learning to acknowledge them and connect to them with human exchange and understand and to not get lost in their emotions and lose my own.

I welcome others and I have found time and again others seek me to hold space for their emotions to live beside mine. Such an honor, such a gift to hold space for circles of emotional beings to live fully. I accept the emotional being in all of us, and know that this part of ourselves is not often given permission to be present, that it often sits unhealed from the traumas of human living. This part of self is one of the most powerful parts of our being, if we let it learn to take its place in our daily lives.

I believe our mental bring is often hindering, our physical being hindering, and this comes from not freeing out emotional being, by freeing our emotions our mind and body are free to express outside of constructions that constrain us us. If we let our emotional brings live, we let our entire self be alive. As an emotional being I see how being free with my emotions, gives lead for my mind and body to be freed and allows all these parts of my whole self to be in support of each other.

In most recent happenings my emotional being has been experiencing the challenge of expansion and growth, to be fully accepting of this part of self that is so important to my ability to heal myself and others. It’s because my emotions are the guides of my intuition. And the more I trust them the more I live from a place of integrity and love for myself and others.
I wish for all of us to be open to the emotional beings we have locked away inside of us. I hope to encourage this with whole truth in exchanges with every person I encounter, to say “I welcome your whole being to be present in this encounter, body, mind and emotion.”