How Am I? Emotional Cleansing

Is “How am I” useful?

How is this question useful? 

Have you ever really asked yourself “How am I?”.

I would like to share my personal experience of how powerful this question can be…

I was on my walk the other morning and it dawned on me I hadn’t asked myself recently “How am I?”

So I did…

“How am I?”

The answer came straight back…

“I am sad”

Thankfully, I realised what I had said to myself…

“I am sad”. 

Oh, how important this realisation was.

I was able to remind myself that…

• “I am not my emotions.”
• “My emotions do not make me who I am.”
• “They are supposed to come and go.”
• “I am only meant to feel them for a certain time.” 
• “The way these emotional waves affect me, depend on what’s going on right now, in and around me.” 
• “They can either sprinkle over me, or totally drench me.”

Today was the day for a drenching!!!…

Adding one simple word to feel lighter

I began by rephrasing what I said to myself.

“I am feeling sad”.

I instantly felt a little lighter just by adding that one word.

Permission was then given to myself so I could feel that emotion and acknowledge how it was affecting me emotionally and physically.

Carefully, I walked out onto a rocky pathway to be surrounded with lapping water.

I then listened.

I focused inwards, and found my inner child.

I observed her with my recently departed fur baby, and asked “what do you miss about him?”

The image I saw was him sitting on her lap, and I instantly felt his weight on me.  I missed his weight, his physical presence, cuddling him and feeling cosy.  The tears began to build. 

I had 2 choices here…

I could choose to push it down, stop the tears in their tracks, put up barriers, rally up my defences and use a lot of effort to do this.

Or…

I could be brave.

Emotional defence or emotionally brave?

“Hmmm… OK, option 2 it is!”

I asked myself…

“Do I have the time to be truly honest and open up to embrace my inner child for her to express her sadness fully right now?”

My reply to that somewhat lengthy question was…

“Yes, I have about half an hour, I can do this and I have my sunglasses for the aftermath if needed!”

So I put on my imagery raincoat and braced for the storm. 

I sunk into the physical discomfort of my grief, and let it rip. 

I allowed myself to be with that feeling of cuddling him and having missed the whole felt sense of him. 

I let the tears flow.

They cascaded down my cheeks.

I allowed the storm to wash over me. 

Stop negative thoughts – stop “protecting” me!

I acknowledged the barrage of thoughts trying to stop me, to try and protect me…

“Is this ever going to stop?”

“You’ve cried enough already, you gonna cry again?!”

“Come on, I have a lot to do!”

“I’m going to look a right mess!”

“What will people think?”

I managed to stay with my inner child and her needs throughout this, she was what was important.

I embraced the need to empty out my system, to do an emotional clean. 

I really leaned into my sadness, I sobbed, my shoulders were shaking. 

I got out of my way.

I surrendered. 

Then, fairly quickly after probably only about a minute, the storm eased (it felt a lot longer!). 

I could see blue sky. 

Check again for emotional cleansing

I was able to ask myself “How am I feeling” again. 

…I wanted to check in with my system to see if it was cleansed of all the sadness and emotions that were causing dis-ease. 

…I wanted to ensure my head hadn’t taken over to what I SHOULD be doing and feeling. 

…I didn’t want my survival response to protect me from temporary pain. 

…I didn’t want any emotions to become hidden away and trapped, to result in long term massive pain.

Fortunately, yay, I was relieved to see my inner child clearly cuddling Sonny and I could feel the memory of his physical presence without the tightness in my chest. 

The memory of his physical weight and soul presence filled my heart and soul up, and feel warm once more.

I was able to put my sunglasses on, and continue walking and continue my day. 

I felt lighter inside of me, having done my emotional detox.

The never ending washing cycle of ignored emotions

I was able to avoid the never-ending washing cycle of emotions going round and round inside of me.

I was able to stop the cycle, put it onto a rinse, then give it a bit of spin. 

I was able to get the clean washing out and hang them on the line in the sun to dry, to be nice and clean again.

Not to say my grief wasn’t going to come back again in some form in the future. I booked myself in for a therapy session to ensure I could fully integrate any emotions, feelings, and tension arising from this, to have help with an overall deep cleansing.

Honesty for true healing

Honesty really helps. 

I hope you are able to…

…open up to your own honesty.

…be honest when you ask yourself on a morning on waking… “How am I?”. “How am I feeling today?” even if it is just for a minute. 

…take the time for yourself to build your skills in looking after yourself.  Please don’t put it off when you are able to do it. 

…acknowledge how your inner child is really feeling.

…openly observe any tension or emotions that are present.

…be still long enough to acknowledge the importance of emotional cleansing in addition to the usual physical system cleansing.

…gift yourself the time to truly listen. 

…be aware of the language you are using towards yourself and others.

…listen with all your senses.

It is honouring to be able to listen with our ears, our eyes, our heart, and our body. 

Gift yourself the enrichment of listening with every sense until you can easily clean your dirty laundry, and put that rinse on, hang out your washing, so it can dry and feel fresh and clean once more. 

Kinesiology – get some help to feel better

Some things can be really hard to face alone.

It can be really hard to do these cleanses on our own. 

We all need a support crew.

We all need assistance at times to do this. 

People who we trust.

Someone we can open up to in a safe open space where we can feel the power of being vulnerable. 

Someone who is able to gently guide us and ask the right questions to lead us towards feeling lighter, unburdened, relieved and clearer.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you need some of that help.  I would love to support you in your journey, to be that trusted someone for you and your family.

Don’t wait for someone else to ask you “Are you OK?”, instead, ask yourself and be honest with yourself and get some help, you deserve it.

I wish you well in deep cleansing your emotions and checking in with yourself daily xo