As moms of young kids, we are all too familiar with emotions. Kids are like big satellite dishes that receive emotions. They act on pure emotions until 5 to 7 when their brains start developing in the regions responsible for thoughts, reasoning, and logic.
But how often do we pay attention to our emotions? Likely only when we feel like we screwed up. Like when we yelled at our kids for not picking up their toys for the thousandth time. Or when we lost our cool because of the endless questions about the color brown. Or the 40th time they asked for a popsicle and you haven't even gotten out of bed yet.
And the guilt that follows these scenarios can be debilitating.
Emotions. For a large part of my life I didn't even believe they existed. I had zero language around emotions. I thought there were only two. Angry and Happy. And I had zero clue on how ignoring my emotions was actually impacting my health and sabatoging any weight loss endeavors.
So what are emotions? On a scientific level they are neurotransmitters flowing through your body. We always associate emotions with our heads or brains, but did you know that the majority of our feel good hormones are produced by our gut?
We also have emotion receptors throughout our bodies. Louise Hay has some amazing research in this area and has been one of my long-standing mentors who have no idea who I am. :)
Years ago I was at a convention where they gave an entire presentation on emotions. A timely point in my life as in the midst of my own battle with depression. I learned there are actually way more emotions than just angry and happy. There's a whole world out here around emotions.
If we want to be truly well. Move towards optimal health and wellness. And look at health as not just the absence of disease, but a continuum where you can keep upleveling to the next level of health and wellness. If you want this for your life and model this lifestyle for your kids, you have to take into account your emotional health.
What I learned is emotions can impact your hormones. I just finished my paper this semester on how cortisol, the "stress hormone," is associated with higher levels of body fat. Particularly, cortisol is associated with belly fat and belly fat raises your risk for all sorts of diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
Additionally stress can trigger IL6, a pro-inflammatory cytokine that is part of our immune system. This allows stress to trigger inflammation in your body. Chronic, low-grade inflammation has been implicated as the root of many diseases as well. Such as insulin resistance, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, which all raise one's risk for cardiovascular disease.
Not getting a handle on our emotions. Lacking a language around emotions. And lacking tools to work through and release emotions. All add to our struggles with weight.
In addition to these, there are enough books and blogs to fill a library about emotional eating. If you remember I shared in a previous blog about how carbs stimulate the brain to produce feel good hormones. So instead of working through the emotion and releasing it, the carb just masks it. We short circuit the healing process by feeling good. However, this typically leads to adding extra pounds. For many of us women, that means around our waistline.
Not dealing with these emotions makes it all but impossible for sustainable, long-term weight loss that we are after.
I also believe teaching our kids a language around emotions is vital to bring up this next generation. Have you seen the suicide rates for children? I mean why is the word suicide and the word children in the same sentence? We need to do better for them.
Learning a language and having the tools to work through their emotions, I believe is one of the greatest gifts we as parents can give our children.
So if you are like me, you are wondering where to start. Here are a few tips I've picked up along the way.
All emotions are ok. There is no such thing as a good or bad emotion.
Physical symptoms always have a emotional root. I believe dis-ease starts on the spiritual level. Our beliefs impact how we think. How we think impacts how we feel and our emotional experience. From there we either take action or don't. Thus leading to our resulting physical symptoms. Physical symptoms are typically what gets our attention. But issues don't start there.
Emotions are broken down into 4 categories: Elation, Depression, Anger, and Fear.
From there each category is broken down into many more specific names of emotions.
Your sense of smell is the fastest way to access and re-wire your emotions towards how you want to feel. The chemical compounds found in plants can help you process old emotions and start choosing what emotions you want to feel.
My clients get access to my whole library of emotional health resources. It is also a module in my new S.E.E.D.S of Change coaching program.
Where we go through and create actionable plans for sleep, environment, emotions, diet, and style for your life. Creating lasting, sustainable weight loss as well as modeling for our kids how to be a healthy adult. One of the greatest gifts we can give our kids!
Want to learn more or see if we would be a good fit? Book a free call with me to discover more. Click Here to book your time.
"Exploring the Beach" @ Eagle Valley Center, Juneau Alaska.
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