Why understanding your emotional state is so important and how it impacts your mental health

As humans we have a unique guidance system within us.  We can tell what we have been thinking by understanding how we feel at any given time.  We feel great when we’ve been thinking good thoughts, we feel inspired when thinking about inspirational things, we feel sad when thinking about sad things and when we think negatively, guess how we end up feeling?

We could feel so empowered, if we became aware of our emotions, where they come from  and what they are here to teach us.

The thing is that most people have become disconnected with how they feel and therefore how they think.

We have heard more about mental health, or, lack of it over the past 2 years than ever before, but my gripe with this is, the philosophy is just like the traditional health care system that we have in the western hemisphere.

As we are looking at mental health alone, just like we do physical health. We are not looking at ourselves as holistic beings and that honestly drives me bonkers, as so many people are suffering unnecessarily because, collectively, we are missing the vital pieces of what makes us healthy, happy and vibrant human beings who are able to fully be present  and contribute to the other people that we share our lives with.

We need emotional wellbeing (sentimental) to be mentally well(sensibility), we need physical health for us to be the strongest mentally, and we do need spiritual connection(sacred health) to support all of the other aspects together.

I have named emotional health – Sentimental health and mental health sensibility, the reason I did this was because language in itself has the ability to trigger our nervous systems and make us feel good or not so good. 

I am going to be telling you more about this subject in the next few week as I will be revealing the content that I have created that is being propelled into the forefront of my business, my life and my souls purpose…anyway, I digress...

If we feel good, we are more likely to think better thoughts and if we think better thoughts we are more likely to feel good in ourselves.   One isn’t exclusive to the other.  WE can very quickly start to feel awful because our thoughts are actually wired inside our minds, yes we have been programmed to think and to feel in certain ways.

Our care givers programmed us, unknowingly, when we were children and we are currently creating our own reality and therefore emotions based on a set of beliefs that we created when we were too young to understand or to question.  So, your emotional and mental wellbeing was probably underpinned many moons ago and you’ve never thought to update the ‘software’ so that you can start to feel better.

Imagine if we were programmed every single day at school; how to use our minds so that we felt good, so that we felt energised, that we felt true acceptance of ourselves, imagine for just one moment if in school assembly we would chant positive feel good affirmations so that children truly FEEL worthy and loved and valued as a kid, we would be living in a totally different world right now. 

So, let's think seriously about being able to manage our emotional state and how that would impact our lives and the lives of those around us.  We would be able to be more present, have more fun, feel more joy.  We would be able to truly connect with those that we loved. 

We could show ourselves more acceptance and kindness and therefore the children that we teach would be able to learn those qualities.  How amazing would that be? 

The issue is simply this, you have not been taught to manage your emotions, this is certainly not your fault and but when they do arise and they are big and strong and often extremely overwhelming, you have no idea how to manage them.

You may not have looked into why, you are feeling that way, then the only thing that you feel like you have the option of is; head to the doctor to get a pill so that you don’t have to feel that way anymore. 

You may feel like you’ve been back into a corner and don’t have any choice and  feel like your feelings are happening TO YOU, not FOR YOU! 

It is ok to feel, not ok, sometimes, but not all the time of course.  It is part of normal life to go through experiences that I call “dark nights of the soul” because if we don’t, we would never learn and grow.

Obviously if something is persistent then you need to go to a therapist, coach or someone else who can help you to heal from the trauma that is making you feel disempowered but honestly, we have to become AWARE of what the emotions are and why we are feeling them. 

Everything starts with awareness.  Awareness brings knowledge, knowledge brings power!

First steps to becoming emotionally aware and therefore mentally strong:

1 – Label the emotion, decide what it is; is it anger, despair, anxiety, stress, overwhelm
2- Write down a list of potential – why could I be feeling this? (NO judgement just go write as much as possible down)
3 – ASK - what can I learn from feeling this way?
4 - How do I take action on this?
5 - Talk it through with a trusted friend if you feel like you can share

Then you may decide you need to find the appropriate person to support you through or maybe you can work it out yourself.  The important thing is to start where you are at. 

Be kind to yourself, don’t beat yourself up because you are going through a rough time, it happens to us all.

Keep communications open and know that you are not alone, we are all on the journey…