Accepting All Emotions
Hello world, Kodi here. So I've made the decision to go back through all of the blog posts that have just been sitting as drafts for far too long. I figure, they were things I wanted to say at some point but never felt that they were ready. But I realized today that I would rather share a raw, unedited version of myself than never feel I'm good enough to share even a part of me.
So here it goes...the mission to finally complete and post all of the writing that has been sitting, hidden on here for however long.
This one is kind of inspired by the last published post on here (Let the Bad Moments Go). Although this time I'm far more aware of how important presence is in emotional health.
There's a Buddhist belief of Impermanence that goes "Everything changes, nothing lasts forever." So let's say for a moment that we go along with this belief--then there is zero point in doing anything that is not experiencing the moment that you are in to the fullest extent that you can. If its a horrible moment, that's okay--> feel that and conversely if its an incredible moment then fully experience that. The bad won't last forever but neither will the good, so just stay present and experience every moment as it comes.
Although the major life lesson learned here is, I have come to the realization that you never truly get an emotion out of your system until you let yourself experience it to its full extent. Whether in your room, or outside somewhere in an empty forest or field or in a bathroom stall when you need a moment. If your body is calling out to feel an emotion, don't push it down--let yourself feel it. Fully. It sounds foreign to us now because its not considered appropriate to be in public and begin sobbing, or yelling, or even laughing with ecstatic joy. So when you feel that pull in your gut or your heart, before I can ever move on from something, I need time alone to allow my body to truly feel every part of that emotion. Then once it's fully traveled through my body and I have viscerally felt it coming out of every pore of my body, only then can I take a deep breathe of fresh, clean air, and move on.
I actually had a director once who took us through an acting exercise at the beginning of a few rehearsals (usually when she could feel that we were all tired or down about something). She had a list of emotions that went in a specific order (unfortunately those notes are sat in a storage box somewhere in the world so I won't be able to relay the information 100% accurately but I shall try my best). She asked us to spend 30 seconds really, truly experiencing each emotion she stated as fully and strongly as we could. The order was something like: annoyance, frustration, anger, pain, sorrow, lethargy, vanity, contentedness, nervous excitement, then pure joy. The exercise took a total of around 5 minutes and it could be extended to as long as you want it to be, but I always felt the 5 minute version was the most potent. I remember being dumbfounded at how released my body felt following the first time I did it. Now looking back I think it was because I never let myself fully feel emotions as they appeared in my life, so they clung on. And that exercise was the first time in a long time that I let myself feel those emotions completely.
I personally believe that to be a healthy human, we can't bury any emotion that comes up. Even though that is what society usually asks us to do. You're only human. Feel it. It's okay. Let it take over your body for the present moment and then breathe it out and move on.
So here it goes...the mission to finally complete and post all of the writing that has been sitting, hidden on here for however long.
This one is kind of inspired by the last published post on here (Let the Bad Moments Go). Although this time I'm far more aware of how important presence is in emotional health.
There's a Buddhist belief of Impermanence that goes "Everything changes, nothing lasts forever." So let's say for a moment that we go along with this belief--then there is zero point in doing anything that is not experiencing the moment that you are in to the fullest extent that you can. If its a horrible moment, that's okay--> feel that and conversely if its an incredible moment then fully experience that. The bad won't last forever but neither will the good, so just stay present and experience every moment as it comes.
Although the major life lesson learned here is, I have come to the realization that you never truly get an emotion out of your system until you let yourself experience it to its full extent. Whether in your room, or outside somewhere in an empty forest or field or in a bathroom stall when you need a moment. If your body is calling out to feel an emotion, don't push it down--let yourself feel it. Fully. It sounds foreign to us now because its not considered appropriate to be in public and begin sobbing, or yelling, or even laughing with ecstatic joy. So when you feel that pull in your gut or your heart, before I can ever move on from something, I need time alone to allow my body to truly feel every part of that emotion. Then once it's fully traveled through my body and I have viscerally felt it coming out of every pore of my body, only then can I take a deep breathe of fresh, clean air, and move on.
I actually had a director once who took us through an acting exercise at the beginning of a few rehearsals (usually when she could feel that we were all tired or down about something). She had a list of emotions that went in a specific order (unfortunately those notes are sat in a storage box somewhere in the world so I won't be able to relay the information 100% accurately but I shall try my best). She asked us to spend 30 seconds really, truly experiencing each emotion she stated as fully and strongly as we could. The order was something like: annoyance, frustration, anger, pain, sorrow, lethargy, vanity, contentedness, nervous excitement, then pure joy. The exercise took a total of around 5 minutes and it could be extended to as long as you want it to be, but I always felt the 5 minute version was the most potent. I remember being dumbfounded at how released my body felt following the first time I did it. Now looking back I think it was because I never let myself fully feel emotions as they appeared in my life, so they clung on. And that exercise was the first time in a long time that I let myself feel those emotions completely.
I personally believe that to be a healthy human, we can't bury any emotion that comes up. Even though that is what society usually asks us to do. You're only human. Feel it. It's okay. Let it take over your body for the present moment and then breathe it out and move on.
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