"Emotional Wholeness"​ The 5th Pillar of Emotional Intelligence

May 2nd, 2019

Growing up we learned that there are good and bad people, acts, and most importantly emotions. That something is either positive or negative. That our emotions are either positive or negative. A black and white perspective to a rather many shades of gray world. I have come to view this perspective as skewed and one that separates us versus brings us together. Not only does it create separation in the world outside of ourselves, it also separates the world that resides within us. When we see a part of us as bad, unworthy or unlikeable, we avoid it, distant ourselves from it. Resulting in a direct impact to our self-worth and confidence. We inadvertently resist our own happiness, success and fulfillment both personally and professionally.

We often view aspects of our path and our emotions as positive, negative, good or bad through our own beliefs and personal filters. Fearing the pain or fear of being banned from our tribe by expressing them. We resist vs. allowing and accepting our emotions as ok and keep our happiness and success at arm’s length. Leaving us wonder, when will it ever arrive? We spiral downward with self-perpetuating beliefs of how we are not enough or worthy of such happiness and success.

Have you ever made affirmations like a mad person with extreme dedication and diligence and wondered why life remains the same? Many times in my life, through challenges and the pitfalls of divorce, loss or past business learning's I would resist my feelings of failure, grief, insignificance or lack of whatever, pushing them down into the filing cabinet of my body and carry on with self-affirming talk that I am confident, strong, intelligent and can accomplish anything I commit myself too. These feelings and emotions were uncomfortable and were the mask to the underlying fear of never being enough. A deep rooted aspect of the human condition. Not a good enough wife, mother, coach, entrepreneur. Not intelligent enough, savvy enough to make it. Or going deeper, fear of the depths of poverty or even death itself. I let my experiences become the proof of my inadequacy. But my experiences do not define who I am or what I am capable of achieving.

As I began to incorporate "emotional wholeness" into my life where I remind myself that I am a human being like everyone else on the planet having a human emotional experience and that ALL emotions are ok I start to notice that my attention, acceptance and love of them would allow them to dissipate and flow through me, and release the power they had over me. The acknowledgement of “this too”, does and will pass. Of course remember accepting all our emotions as ok does not give us free range to act on them! We can choose to positively respond instead.

In the past when I was faced with a challenge or plainly hit with a two by four by life I would become swept up in the emotion I felt. Unable to focus or attend to the things that would move me forward. All consumed by my anger, grief, guilt, shame, fear or utter lack of self-confidence often reflecting on the people I care for most. My perception that I was horrible, and horrible for feeling angry or I "should" be handling it better. I fiercely judged and criticized myself, that I was a fraud and often submitted to the feelings that I would never succeed.

Now when I feel fear, grief, inadequacy or even panic I pause in the moment I become aware of them, acknowledge their presence and invite them to dinner and drinks for an open dialogue. (Some people may call me weird but I think it's the best kind of insanity.) I allow all emotion, without judgment, only acceptance and love, without becoming victim to them. I have found an incredible amount of freedom in these moments of pause and acceptance. I find that life will never stop delivering inevitable challenges or new learning's. What changes is how long we stay in the dip, and how we choose to respond. We can't leave it up to anyone else to give us the unconditional love and acceptance that we need. We need to give it to ourselves first.

We can akin this to a river, the flow of life in all its capacity and emotion. When the river is blocked up with rocks, boulders, and logs the pressure builds, rages, overflows, taking undesirable detours. Yet when the blockages are removed the river is able to flow freely with the ebb and flow of the land. When we resist the emotion we feel and label it as bad, inadequate or undesirable we block the flow just as the rocks, boulders and logs in the river. When we allow them to flow through us, knowing that all emotions are ok, and accepted, life effortlessly flows through us and brings us more of the things we most desire.