Are Toxic Emotions Keeping You from True Health?

We often hear, throughout the ancient wisdom traditions of yoga and Ayurveda, that toxic emotions are just as harmful as physical toxicity and repressed emotion can crystallize into illness or dis-ease in the body. Yet it’s ingrained in our culture to avoid feeling and we’re not taught how to skillfully navigate the complex world of our inner emotional experience.

Our society is well-versed in celebrating “intellectual geniuses”—the Einsteins and Teslas of the world. It’s easy to spot the “physical geniuses”—the highly prized athletes of our day. Even “spiritual geniuses” are acknowledged as the enlightened saints and sages throughout all of time. But who are the “emotional geniuses”? Where are they?

Our society doesn’t have any place to revere emotional geniuses as a category of being. Children, in my opinion, are the closest to an emotional genius as I can imagine. When they feel something, they experience it fully—wailing, screaming, crying, yelling—and then they feel better and are off to play. On the flip side, they experience joy and enthusiasm fully too, don’t they? Their emotional landscape moves swiftly, like the weather patterns of nature. One moment it’s cloudy and stormy, the next moment the sun is shining with full rainbows in bloom. There’s a natural ebb and flow to the emotional experience of a child.

 

 

Somewhere along the way, we learned how to start repressing our emotions in order to survive. We learned that carrying on or being upset was a disturbance to others and that we shouldn’t be so “dramatic.” Or that “good” boys and girls should be “strong” which meant holding back their tears. At one point maybe you were punished for feeling your feelings, so over time you learned how to stuff them, pretend on the outside like nothing was wrong, but inside they started to build up and eat away at you.

“95% of what we think, say and do as an adult, comes from unconscious behaviors as a child.”—Dr David Frawley

So, now what do we do? We never learned how to skillfully “do” emotion. How can we deepen our relationships with others when we’re afraid to express or be seen? How can we heal our physical body when toxic emotions that have been stuffed down for years are wreaking havoc on our system, keeping our innate healing mechanisms from performing optimally? How can we start upgrading our ability to move emotions throughout the system, and flow with the inevitable ups and downs of life without causing harm?

Wherever you are right now and wherever you want to go, recognize this: You must be able to expand the range of emotion you currently are experiencing in order to grow. It’s a vital part of the healing path and it’s a vital part of your path of living out your higher purpose.

The primary work I do as an Ayurvedic and holistic health practitioner is to help people skillfully release the emotional baggage that holds them back from experiencing true health. After facilitating hundreds of clients to eradicate illness, dissolve emotional blocks, and overcome stuck-ness, I have created the Soul of Healing Summit to further help you on your path to physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness.

I’ve personally found there’s no better way to inspire my path to health than to immerse myself in the presence of beings who have integrated that higher truth inside of themselves. Just by learning from them and being with them can awaken the highest truth inside of you, as well.