One Step Closer - 3/3

A WAY TO NURTURE YOUR EMOTIONAL SELF

We have grown up believing that serving others means putting your own needs somewhere towards the end of your priority list. But the truth is that we can only serve others authentically after we have taken care of ourselves. Being good to ourselves and being good to others doesn’t have to be a contradiction. It’s quite the opposite because taking care of the whole, begins with taking care of oneself.

Michael Brown in his book, The Presence Process, presents an approach that resonates with me. According to him, all emotions are essentially “energy in motion”. They are not good or bad. They are just energy. We perceive them as various physical sensations in our bodies – butterflies in the stomach, burning ears, tingling in our fingers. And any attempt to hide the corresponding feelings with these sensations is additional tension. It is easier to simply accept some feelings and that is the absolute basic of nurturing your emotional self.

Once you accept your emotional state, then you can choose how to go about it. For example, you might feel lonely or sad and decide to look for company of friends or watch a movie or eat a brownie. You attempt to alter your feelings by choosing to do something about it. The other approach, popular with many practitioners is to give unconditional attention to your feelings, without any attempt to alter them. Sounds crazy but stay with me as I explain how this process is far more productive in the long run. By being fully aware of your emotions in the present moment and detaching from their mental interpretations, you gradually can get to the root of your feeling. That is how I changed my behavior towards my husband, every time we shared a different perspective.

To put it simply, the way you choose to nurture your emotional self can differ. Sometimes, you can sit with your feelings and reflect upon them, another time you could distract yourself. But however, you choose to act, remember always to acknowledge and validate your feelings- just like the fact that you have brown hair or you are Indian.