How to Heal Emotional Reactivity

Do you ever feel in a bad mood, and you’re not sure why? Do you ever feel inescapably anxious, even when you know it’s not rational? Do you feel ashamed or lost without a tangible reason?

When you don’t understand your emotional experience, you’re being shown elements of your past that haven’t been processed. What’s incredible about human beings is that we’re able to push aside, bury and cover up memories that we aren’t emotionally prepared to unpack and make sense of. We might think that we’ve ‘dealt with’ a situation because it’s over and we’ve stopped thinking about it, but that unprocessed material doesn’t disappear — it gets relegated to the shadows of our unconscious, where it seeps into our every decision, action and reaction.

If you’ve got to that point where you no longer want to be at the whim of our emotional outbursts, held back by your fears, or controlled by everything that triggers you, it’s time to turn towards some of that unprocessed energy. 

This is not the same as psychotherapy. It is separate to all the storylines that we mentally create, and it doesn’t need to involve any talking. Emotional processing is an energetic experience; it’s about discharging the energy of stuck emotions. You don’t have to make sense of it. In fact, as soon as you try, you’re restricting your interpretation to the confines of your logical mind. 

Emotions are feelings, physical sensations in the body. They are therefore meant to be felt internally. Instead of spraying your rage on the people around you, numbing your sadness through distractions, or avoiding your shame by playing small, the practice of emotional processing helps you create a safe space in which to feel to the core of that which moves you. 

It’s similar to how prey animals will shake off their stressed state after a near-miss with a predator. They let all that fearful energy move through them until it is all released and they can get back to grazing. What makes it so much harder for us humans to simply discharge our emotional energy is that we want to be in control of our experience. If we don’t understand it mentally then we don’t feel in control; if we don’t feel in control, we’d rather just not feel it at all!

The most common objection I hear to this practice is that people don’t want to go deeper into the feeling. It’s painful and confusing to feel into this unwanted energy. But when we are triggered and react so quickly, so as to not fully feel what is arising, we are breaking a cycle. We are halting the flow of energy that is trying to move through us. The feeling just needs to be felt, and then it’s over. The resistance perpetuates the feeling; the coping strategies keep the energy stuck in you. 

When I teach emotional processing, we start with minor triggers. We’ll establish a safe meditative state, like that of floating in a nurturing, unconditionally loving womb. We’ll call to mind a minor incident — a disagreement or judgment about someone at work; getting frustrated with a technical problem; feeling impatient in traffic. Rather than talking about why you THINK you reacted the way you did, you’ll be directed to simply feel the sensation that arises. In this way, you’ll learn to separate all the mental meaning from the pure, raw feeling. When you recognise the experience as simply sensation, it no longer has power over you. You can choose not to make meaning out of it; you can choose not to react. 

As you continue this practice, you’ll eventually burn off the charge your triggers once had. You’ll notice that the reactions you once had were based on coping strategies you needed when those emotions first came up. You’ll begin to release the need to defend, attack, hide or perform. 

If you want an introduction to this process, I’m running an Emotional Processing workshop at Jiva in Wimbledon on Sunday 14th November, 12:30-2:30pm. You can also join online, or purchase the recording to watch at a later time. You can book your spot here.

NB: this workshop is not suitable for anyone dealing with major trauma. If you’d like to discuss your options, please get in touch via eleanor@fluxandflowcoaching.com.