How Unprocessed Emotions Effect our Bodies and Health

Welcome to another episode of Mindfully Moody! In this episode, we're digging into how unprocessed emotions and feelings STAY in our body and energy field and can then morph into physical pain, injury, and more. 

We  reveal the spiritual and emotional symbols behind the aches and pains we carry in our bodies, shedding light on the balance between esoteric interpretations and the tangible elements of health. 

So many of us are caught in a relentless cycle of suppressing emotions with the next quick fix, whether it be food, alcohol, substances, gossip, activities that are misaligned with you, etc. This is completely normalized in our society and we have both experienced this many times in our lives.

There are so many nuances that come with honoring our emotions, understanding that acknowledgment is the first step towards healing and preventing our pains from becoming unwelcome tenants in our being.

This episode isn't just about realization; it's about taking action towards emotional liberation. Exploring somatic practices from breathwork ceremonies to the grounding poses of yoga, we discuss how these modalities serve as conduits for connecting with our inner selves and fostering the release of unprocessed and pent-up emotions. 

It takes resilience to confront and process our emotions. It is not the easy path, but it is the path to true inner freedom.  Profound healing that lies within the spaces we create to truly feel. 

Join us on this heartfelt odyssey as we embrace the courage to become our own healers.

https://www.mindfully-moody.com/ for more info on us.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

What's up everyone? Welcome back to Mindfully Moody, your favorite podcast, with your favorite podcast host, best friend, sarah, and Hannah. Welcome to another episode where we are just getting honest, authentic, sharing what is going on in our worlds, our hearts, because we know that the collective can relate so much. We are about two and a half years into this podcasting journey. Holy shit, wow. Two and a half years of growth, evolving, of bearing our hearts and souls. I mean we've brought some real, true, honest shit to this podcast. We have done so much growth in ourselves throughout this journey as well, and there are so many episodes for you to tune in. If you are new listening to the podcast, we have been doing weekly episodes for a year and a half now and we have you know before that we were doing bi-weekly, so we have so much content for you to consume. Go, scroll through, check out our other episodes, follow us on social and all the things. Let's get into it. What are we talking about?

Speaker 2: 1:27

Okay. So the other day I was having an energy reading, like a chakra reading, from this spiritual, intuitive medium, and something came up that she was noticing that I wasn't processing my emotions. Like I would have feelings of anger, feelings of sadness, feelings of anxiety, feelings of all of these hard feelings inside, and she saw that I wasn't dealing with them and letting them come out, come to life Right, like so, when I would have a feeling of anger, I would maybe just try to stuff it down with something else, right? Maybe escaping on social media, doing something else to run away rather than feel that anger and pound it out. Or feeling a sense of sadness. Maybe I'm feeling lonely Rather than crying. It's just like I go and hang out with someone to try to push myself away and distract myself.

Speaker 2: 2:30

And it just made me realize her bringing this to my life that I think a lot of people do this. We try to escape these emotions with these different senses of vices, and these emotions get stuck within us. That could be in the form of manifesting in a physical issue in the body, it could be some sort of emotional issue, but it made me realize how important it is to process emotions that are coming up and honor those emotions. So I wanted to just have a conversation about it you know maybe, sarah, if you experienced this, you experienced this of trying to escape emotions rather than crying it out or pounding it out or expressing it in some sort of somatic way and for us just to talk about how we deal with emotions and maybe some healthier ways, how we can process the emotion so they don't get stuck and manifest into physical ailments in the body, don't get stuck and manifest into physical ailments in the body.

Speaker 1: 3:27

I love this conversation. This is really good because so many people experience what you're talking about of emotion coming up, whether it be anger, sadness, frustration, anxiety, stress, like whatever the emotion is, stuffing it down and then going to distract themselves in some way, and there could be so many different forms of distraction. You said social media could be food that's what it was for myself for a really long time. Could be seeking company that they're not aligned with, could be drinking, could be using drugs, could be partying, could be so many things. And I think that when we seek these distractions, exactly what you're saying is so true it prevents us from processing those emotions. They stay stuck in our body. Then they can come through as physical ailments, they can come through as all different sorts of things.

Speaker 1: 4:31

So I've definitely experienced this in my own life. Like if you go through a period where you're feeling really down maybe depression, maybe a lot of anger, a lot of sadness, a lot of anxiety you don't feel good. You know like when you're just continuing to go through life and try to show up as the same type of person that you were prior to this period, you don't feel good. You know like. You feel like you're putting on a mask, but you're still putting on the mask because you feel forced to put on the mask in some sort of way. Now, maybe your back starts hurting. Maybe you're playing a sport and you twist your ankle. Now you're hurt. You.

Speaker 2: 5:15

You know like all of these things can just start happening in your life because there's this stuck energy that's showing up with you yeah, yeah, and it just reminds me of like kind of what the spiritual world says about a lot of physical ailments, like it could be like extra weight or lower back pain or pain in your right neck, of how, like sometimes we can look to the body to try to understand where those stuck kind of emotions have come from right. Like I forget, is it? The right side is a masculine and the left side is a feminine? Yes, okay, yeah. So like thinking about and using your intuition. Do you ever do this of like using your intuition to think about like oh, maybe I'm having a pain here. This could be caused by something. Like, oh, maybe I'm having a pain here.

Speaker 2: 6:06

This could be caused by something. They say that like lower back pain can be caused by like feeling, like financial issues. So I think it's so interesting just to think about whether that is fully true or not, right, I think people can have physical issues, but there could be things that are manifesting in the body. Um, to work, try to work through that. Like I was having some lower back issues like two weeks ago or three weeks ago and I was like for me, I'm like, okay, well, I am feeling like I'm having like financial, like some scarcity mindsets financially, but also I'm at the gym, I'm literally back in the gym lifting weight. So sometimes I'm like which one could it be?

Speaker 2: 6:41

But, um, just talking about like these emotions that get pushed down, pushed down, pushed down, I know for years I think that we can definitely relate to this of how many years I spent emotionally eating, having a difficult emotion, reaching for food and then stuffing that emotion down, trying to clear it, and then just binge, binge, binge, binge, because I don't want to actually deal with the emotions at hand. Man, I did that for so many years and still I mean, I still have emotional eating tendencies definitely not as bad as it was, you know, 10 years ago, five years ago. But people want an escape, because dealing with the emotions can be too challenging or people don't know how to deal with the emotions right. So if someone is feeling anxious or if someone is feeling sadness, they're going to reach for those vices. But what would it look like if you were feeling sad and you just found some tool to help you cry, to let those tears shed, because that's a release too?

Speaker 1: 7:43

it so is think about how good it feels after you have like a really big cry you know so.

Speaker 2: 7:49

So. So what is that? Is it like literally one?

Speaker 1: 7:52

of the serotonin? Yes, yes, I think so like I don't know the exact like chemicals that release in you, when hormones that release in you when you cry or have an emotional experience. But I think, som I can talk about the experience of that of like, okay, I have this stuck emotion. Maybe I'm feeling, maybe, let's let's say it's loneliness. I'm feeling lonely. I'm feeling like I don't have people that can relate to me, I don't have people that understand me. Maybe you are longing for a partner, but you don't have one, and there's all of these feelings that come up and then it gets stuck, and it could get stuck in all different areas, and this is different for everyone too. You know, for myself, there are things that I definitely feel getting stuck that are more like my womb space versus my heart space, and I think, with loneliness, a lot of times for women it can be in like a sacral and heart area.

Speaker 1: 8:54

But when you have that, okay, I'm going to sit into this emotion and I'm going to experience this emotion process, this emotion. I'm lonely. Why am I lonely? What are the things that I feel about being alone? Am I lonely? What are the things that I feel about being alone?

Speaker 1: 9:11

You know, do I feel like it's a weakness to be alone? Who told me that? When did that feeling originate? How can I actually have gratitude for this experience of being alone? What am I meant to learn in this season of feeling loneliness? You know when you actually can get curious about that emotion and then, if you have a somatic release, it's like that chakra, wherever that energy is, can actually clear out. Because if you're just like you're not taking any action to clear it, it's just continuing to sit and it's getting dense and dense and dense. And then the somatic experience of, however you do it crying, rage, shit, punch a pillow, scream at the, you know, go in nature and scream at the top of your lungs, scream in a pillow I actually have been going to the beach and Danielle suggested this to me and going underwater and screaming underwater, like, and it just breaks up those dense emotions and then you can actually release the thing that you're feeling.

Speaker 2: 10:14

I love that. I love that. I think it's so powerful to have examples like that because, also just to give people the invitation that like you can do that, you know you're feeling your fucking goat, girl I. I be driving in my car, sometimes on the way home from a dog park with chimmy and I literally scream bloody murder. I'm like like if I'm feeling angry sometimes chimmy's like.

Speaker 2: 10:38

What the hell he's like mom, you good, and it's not like I'm like that angry, but like sometimes it's like you just need to like let the body like roar, you know, because oh my god, I'm so in my head so many times that like, even just like doing a scream, it's like I'm in, getting in my body, I'm releasing um gosh, there's so many, yeah ways.

Speaker 2: 11:01

the other day I was feeling a sense of sadness but I've been having a block, like recently. I used to be able to cry a lot like easily and I'm like I need a good cry. I need a good cry. So like I went on TikTok and I was just like looking up like sad videos and then just like crying, crying, crying, and that did the trick. Or like reading old letters from my dad. Like I have tools in my toolbox that I use in order to like let that sadness out if I'm not able to cry on my own, because it just helps me and release and like process and like move through emotions. Yeah, I think what do you have?

Speaker 2: 11:39

any other like any other, like somatic practices that you use to help.

Speaker 1: 11:44

Maybe if you can't like fully get that emotion out like things that you use to help, maybe if you can't like fully get that emotion out, like things that you do well, I mean, I think breath work is like one of my favorite things because it always allows whatever emotion you need to let out, to get let out you know like I'll go into a breath work like and I'm talking about like a longer breathwork ceremony or something of that sort you know where you're maybe breathing for like 20 to 40 minutes where, like you can, or to an hour, like, where you can really start to feel things come up and you might laugh, you might cry, you might scream, you might like make all of these different sounds and release whatever emotion needs to be released inside of you. So I definitely recommend that. I also think that movement and it doesn't have to be like you know you're going on a run or something like that, but like yoga, doing stretching, opening up Like, let's say that you feel this denseness in your heart chakra like doing stretching and yoga and those kind of movements that actually open up that area so that you can release some of the denseness. That is there, I think, is really really helpful. That is there I think, is really really helpful.

Speaker 1: 13:10

Um, I also think like I feel a lot of energy accumulate in my womb all the time and I just will spend time when I'm meditating, when I'm doing you know any type of spiritual practice, with my hands on my womb and just like envision myself sending light to that place in my body. So I think if you're experiencing you know dense energy anywhere, like you are your own healer, you are capable of releasing these things, of healing things that you know you maybe felt like you couldn't, could never get over. I mean, I have certainly experienced that in my own life. I've seen other people that I know experience that in their lives and I think we have to tune into our intuition like what, what feels right for you to release the things that may be holding you back.

Speaker 2: 14:05

And I feel like this is just a lesson of having, overall, more body awareness. Like, as these emotions come up, where are we feeling them in our body? Like, okay, I'm feeling like I'm very anxious or scared right now, or no, I'm feeling very stressed at work and my shoulders are up, like maybe that stress feeling like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders is physically manifesting in your body. Right, how can you lessen some of that stress, even putting attention towards your body? Okay, like giving yourself a little massage, you know, allowing yourself to relax, um, or this is so powered by our intuition too. We have all the answers within, like, if I'm feeling like this sense of loneliness and being disconnected from friends in the world, how can I go connect with the world myself? Right, by just putting my feet on the ground and envisioning like a sense of like light or roots shooting up from the earth's surface and connecting me and getting me grounded, like it's simple things like that that can really drop us into our body. And those practices, I think, are ones that we can kind of have in our toolkit before we move to the distractions of escaping. Right, oh, I just want to go to reach for TikTok, or rotate through the apps Instagram, tiktok, youtube until I forget about what I'm feeling Like. How can I get in the body and create that awareness?

Speaker 2: 15:32

Also, I remember I was in therapy like five years ago. I was feeling super anxious and that, I think, was like one of the first times I was introduced to like somatics too. He's like where do you feel this in your body? What does that feel like? Like being able to also identify that feeling of just like slowing down and being mindful and being like okay, I'm feeling anxiety. It feels like a black and it looks like a black ball of sharpness in my chest. Okay, how can I kind of like loosen that up? Is there things that I can do with my hands? Is there any tapping Like? Do I need to do some dancing? Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:09

There's just so many options of how we can kind of oh dancing, yeah right If I'm feeling disconnected to my feminine. I'm about to go on a date. You know I'm going to put on some Pretty Ricky and do some twerking. Get these hips open, you know. Shake that ass, baby. Grind on me, I love it. Take a test on me.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Okay, that's a good one. That's a good embodiment song.

Speaker 2: 16:35

I love that.

Speaker 1: 16:38

I also just want to acknowledge how challenging it can be to feel your emotions, because so many people are not taught to do this and the society that we live in and the society that we live in, sometimes we have to stuff shit down. You know, if I'm about to walk into a nine hour work day where I'm going to come in contact with a bunch of people and have to deal with conflict, I can't just decide maybe that morning that it's the time to feel my feelings and like go into a big crying experience. Or if you're a mom that has two jobs and you know a single mom that has to work to take care of her kids, and you know it's like you have to stuff down your emotions because it's how you survive. So I think that there is also a protection mechanism that comes with this of like. This actually is something that we are able to do sometimes like to compartmentalize things. I've seen my own mother do this many times in my life and it's like it's because we live in this overstimulating, demanding world that requires us to reduce the way that we feel in order to show up how we have to to literally make it through the day.

Speaker 1: 18:01

So I just want to acknowledge that because, like, this is a new, this is a new skill, this is a new thing for a lot of people to figure out, how to integrate into their lives to actually, you know, take the time and as I'm saying this, it's jogging something in me to say, like, if you do, if you are in a position like that where you feel like you don't even have enough time to process things, or to take the time that you desire to try to heal whatever you're feeling Like, try to create some sort of container for yourself whether it's like 15 minutes, 30 minutes, however much you can.

Speaker 1: 18:40

You know when your kids are asleep or when you get up early in the morning, or on your lunch break or whatever that you can just take that intentional time to say I'm going to check in with myself and try to understand how I'm feeling, checking in with my body, what's coming up, and allow yourself that container of time, even if it's 15 minutes, to try to start to process through. And it might take you longer than it would take someone. That has more time and that's okay.

Speaker 2: 19:13

I think it's also like a shift in beliefs. I think in the past, you know our grandparents, our parents they were kind of raised that like, don't show your emotions. Showing your emotions is weak. You know, if you like be strong, pull up your bootstraps, don't express that emotion, which was strong at the time. But I think that there's a new belief, there's a new identity going around that like the more vulnerable you are, the more you honor the emotions that you're feeling. That is real strength, right, it's honoring how you're feeling. So I think that also having that shift in, like what we see, how people process emotions, that like that's beautiful and that's brave, and that's also going to help you in the long run being able to process your emotions in a healthy way.

Speaker 2: 20:06

And I know I am on this journey to continue to process my emotions. I know it's a challenge to always choose a healthy or choose a different route other than distractions. It's challenging, right, we live in a fast-paced society that we have so many distractions that we don't have to deal with it. But I know I'm on this journey to try to deal with emotions in a healthy way and I'm happy we could talk about this. This is really like juicy conversation and very eye opening for me even.

Speaker 1: 20:44

Absolutely. I think it's so important, as we continue to evolve as spiritual beings living this human life as a collective, to deepen into our emotions, deepen into the understanding of ourselves and give ourselves the space, the time, the energy to express this. Because when you allow things to move through, you express this because when you allow things to move through you in a more rapid way, versus stuffing them down, you heal quicker. You heal quicker, things are relieved quicker when you just allow yourself that space to be angry, sad, frustrated, anxious, scared, whatever the emotion is deepening into. That allows you to move quicker.

Speaker 2: 21:45

So in order to heal it. You got to feel it, baby. Thank you guys.

Speaker 1: 21:52

That's a good one. That's a good one that's a good, a good one liner thank you guys for listening if you felt this episode in your heart.

Speaker 2: 22:02

if it resonates, feel free to share this episode with someone who maybe needs to hear it. And if you guys love mindfully moody, if you want to show up for us, go ahead and leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. It will really help us grow this podcast and reach this podcast to like-minded people like you. We love you, we appreciate you and we can't wait to see you back next week. Bye.