Tiny Buddha

Tag: emotional regulation

  • Emotionally Imbalanced? How Qigong Can Help You Heal Your Mind and Body

    Emotionally Imbalanced? How Qigong Can Help You Heal Your Mind and Body

    “In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.” ~Mitch Albom

    The marble tile felt cold and hard against the side of my body as I lay sobbing and shaking on the floor. Some part of my mind nudged me to get to the couch, but I couldn’t. What did it matter?

    Tears kept flowing as my moans of “Why? Why? Why?” echoed through the room. Despite the discomfort, I curled into a tighter fetal position on the floor, continuing to sob and whimper. Every once in a while, I would cough and gag, a familiar side effect of crying so hard.

    After ten minutes, I had the clarity and energy to get up. I wiped my tears, blew my nose, and took several deep breaths, each one shaky and ragged.

    This moment mirrored dozens of other similar moments over the past two years. The severity had lessened, perhaps due to therapy or simply the passing of time. However, I never knew the deep sorrow would hit again and bring me down, literally.

    Most people experience this type of loss at some point. Mine resulted from a dearly loved and close family member telling me they never wanted to talk to me again and wanted me out of their life, in words much harsher and more hurtful.

    Deeply rooted feelings of insecurity from a childhood filled with physical and emotional abuse rose to the surface (that’s a story for another time), compounding my feelings of wretchedness, unworthiness, and loss.

    As I mentioned above, time and an incredible estrangement therapist had begun to heal some of the pain. I gravitated to therapy because I have my master’s and part of my PhD in Psychology. My clients found relief and recovery with me through cognitive behavioral, narrative, and art therapy methods. I did feel better talking with my skilled and experienced therapist.

    However, I continually felt unstable. Imagine having to walk on a balance beam all the time. You get used to it and feel more competent, but you never have the same stability as walking on solid ground. I knew I had to get my emotions on firm footing.

    I had used Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as my primary healthcare model for eight years. I know the acupuncture and herbs eased some of the extreme sadness. However, after this bout of waterworks and wailing, I realized I needed to learn more about what TCM says about the emotions. So I began to research, and my life changed forever.

    According to TCM, imbalanced emotions cause disease and mental health problems. Each organ relates to a pair of emotions, and when they are healthy you let go of the imbalanced emotions and retain a balanced state.

    • Lungs: Imbalanced = loss, grief, and sorrow; Balanced = dignity, integrity, and courage
    • Kidneys: Imbalanced = fear, loneliness; Balanced = self-confidence and inner strength
    • Liver: Imbalanced = anger, frustration, impatience; Balanced = kindness and compassion
    • Heart: Imbalanced = nervousness, excessive joy, and anxiety; Balanced = joy, contentment, and tranquility
    • Spleen: Imbalanced = overthinking, obsessiveness, and worry; Balanced = trust and openness

    I felt a significant shift in how I viewed emotions. Clarity arose about how my state of mind harmed or healed my body and vice versa.

    The good news from my research was that people can skillfully balance their feelings.

    One of the most powerful tools to do so is qigong.

    Two Chinese characters comprise qigong: qi 气and gong 功. You can roughly translate qi to mean energy or life force. It’s more complicated than that, but that imagery works for this discussion. Gong means work or skill. Therefore, qigong means developing skill in working with energy.

    Qigong originated from primitive people’s efforts to nurture their health. In fact, in 1957, when archaeologists excavated graves from over 5,000 years ago, they found a colored ceramic basin painted with a figure doing various qigong movements.

    Qigong in ancient China was also called tuna (adjustment of breathing), daoyin (moving the body and breathing), zuochan (sitting in meditation), or neigong (internal exercise). These translations emphasize the importance of breathing and using the mind when doing qigong exercises.

    A nice description of qigong for today is the skill of physical and mental training that weaves together the functions of the body, breathing, and the mind. When you integrate these three elements, you adjust the yin and yang balance in your body to prevent and reverse physical and mental disease.

    The key to remember is that, just as with any other skill, you need to practice.

    Living in Shanghai, China at the time of my exploration, I joined qigong classes at the parks near my home. At the time I wasn’t immersed in the theory, just the movements. This level of practice brought a sense of relief. I didn’t feel on the verge of falling off the balance beam at any given moment.

    Nevertheless, the shaky foundation persisted. So, I dove deeper into medical qigong theory and completed my qigong teacher certification to broaden my insights. During these studies, the healing power of sounds, colors, finger mudras, and walking patterns emerged as tools for balancing the emotions.

    For example, as you read above, my sorrow and sadness related to my lungs. The lungs tie to the metal element, the season of fall, the color white, and the emotional healing sound “ssss.” The annual respiratory illnesses each autumn, the anniversary of the estrangement, finally made sense.

    Another medical qigong concept I found affirmed that the initial willingness to cry served a purpose.

    To illustrate, my study of qigong taught me that feeling and expressing emotions helps clear stagnant energy so the body can rebalance. For instance, there is an expression of long-term physical ailments being caused by “unshed tears.” Puffiness under the eyes is one symptom of this sub-health condition. Crying as needed serves as an important role in healing, and I had definitely done plenty of crying.

    Having said that, lingering in this state slows recovery. Qigong exercises help focus the mind and release the imbalanced aspects of emotions from the body. Through qigong, the stagnant energy returns to the earth for recycling, and you live in a balanced state.

    Perhaps the most efficacious tool for qigong practice is nature.

    Qigong practitioners learn how to gather qi from plants, water, soil, sand, canyons, mountains, oceans, rivers, etc., as well as how to use this qi for regeneration and repair. You might have seen the plethora of new “forest bathing” books in bookstores. This healing modality stems from the same ancient roots as qigong and demonstrates the effectiveness of nature to heal.

    You focus on the present moment, fully immersed in the sensations surrounding you and your breath.

    As I’ve practiced and applied the curative tools of qigong, my literal and figurate feet are planted on the ground. Instead of balancing precariously on a thin beam of wood, I experience the ebbs and flows of life like a tree. My roots run deep into the earth creating a solid foundation, and my trunk serves as a stable core. From this position of solidity, my branches and leaves blow with the wind, experiencing the world. The tree remains stable and strong yet lives and enjoys life.

    Whether extreme happiness (the birth of my grandson) or broken heartedness (my continued estrangement) come my way, I use the tools and mindset of qigong to rebalance. I learn the lessons each emotion teaches me and come back to center, rooted in nature and the present moment.

    I no longer crumple to the floor. Now, when the subtle energy shifts that occur when thinking of my estrangement surface, they nudge me instead of assailing me.

    The greatest gift from this experience is the opportunity to teach others about qigong for emotional healing.

    Your body wants to partner with you to heal and balance your emotions. Whether with me or other skilled qigong practitioners, you now have another tool to add to your toolbox of emotional well-being.

  • 5 Ways to Use Movement (Not Exercise) to Support Your Mental Health

    5 Ways to Use Movement (Not Exercise) to Support Your Mental Health

    “Nothing is more revealing than movement.” ~Martha Graham

    It seems like only yesterday that I was at home with a newborn, a kindergartener, two dogs, and a husband who, just like me, was working from home, when we were thrown into the unthinkable COVID19 pandemic.

    It didn’t take long for the stress and tension to build in my body. The feeling of instability, uncertainty, and fear, not to mention the post-partum anxiety, took its toll on my body as it became more rigid, bound, immobile, and frozen.

    All the ways I had relied on movement as exercise were taken away, adapted to in-home and Zoom learning, which unfortunately did not work for my schedule or home life. It was the first time in a long time that I was not able to incorporate dance into my week.

    It seemed very hard to expand, stretch, even breathe, and that’s when it hit me. A little voice inside said, “You need to practice what you preach!” I needed to redefine movement and focus it on my mental health; connecting to movement for emotional well-being and not just for physical activity.

    When most of us think of movement we think of exercise. While all exercise is movement, not all movement is exercise.

    There are so many ways our bodies move, even involuntarily, that contribute to not only how we feel but what we think. Science tells us that molecules of emotion exist throughout the body, so wouldn’t it make sense that in order to manage those emotions, we need to tap into all the ways to move the body that houses them?

    First, let’s look at what movement is. Movement is anything that allows the body to change position or relocate. This can be something as grandiose as running a marathon, or a resting heartbeat, blood pumping, even breathing. All of these examples involve parts of the body or the whole body shifting its position.

    So, with this in mind, how are you moving right now? Now ask yourself, how is this movement impacting my mood in this moment? Is it supporting a healthy mindset or perpetuating a habit or behavior that contributes to a negative thought pattern?

    In my case, as mentioned above, my movement was very limited, confined, and rigid. It was often impeded by another person, my newborn, who through no fault of his own needed me for survival. I neglected my own body’s needs and it took a toll on my mental health.

    Changing the way you think or even feel actually comes down to changing how you move. So what can be done? Here are five ways you can use movement to support your mental health.

    1. Focus on your movement right now.

    When we focus on our movement in the present moment, we minimize the anticipation of what’s to come, which is often tied to fear or anxiety. We also mitigate dwelling on the past, which can harbor feelings of guilt and doubt.

    Every movement is an opportunity to be in the moment, because every moment is found in movement.

    Bring to mind one part of your body and simply become aware of its shape, how much space it takes up, if it has any rhythm, or even the lack of movement present. Begin to shift this part of the body in small ways and explore how this part moves.

    I began to recognize that my body was closed and tight. So I intentionally made an effort to check in with my posture, giving myself an opportunity to stretch and expand in my body to counter the negative effects I was experiencing.

    2. Cross the midline of your body.

    When we engage in any cross-lateral movement, like walking, marching, or giving ourselves an embrace, we encourage one hemisphere of the brain to talk with the other. This boosts neural activity across the corpus collosum, which increases neuralplasticity, otherwise known as the brain’s ability to change. This allows new pathways to develop which directly corresponds to our emotional resilience, ability to problem solve, and think critically.

    Begin by giving yourself a big hug or simply touching opposite hand to opposite knee. You could also try exercises or yoga poses that require you to cross your midline, like side bends, windmills, or bicycling while lying on your back.

    3. Move your spine.

    When you engage in movement of your spine, you tap into your self-awareness. This vertical plane of the body houses our core; beliefs, identity, moral compass. Bringing attention to the spine and any way it is able to move gives us the opportunity to become more aware of our inner world, how we feel, and what we need.

    Keep in mind that you do not have to be flexible, but gently explore all the ways you are able to move your spine, rib cage, and even hips.

    I like to start my day from the comfort of my bed, lying on my back, bringing my knees into my chest, and hugging my legs. As I tuck my chin, this allows my spine to curve as I attempt to connect head and tail.

    4. Play with timing and space.

    We move in familiar ways because we like comfort, even it that comes at a price for our mental health.

    Our bodies tend to stick to a certain timing, pace, and even shape as we move through our world. When we change up the timing and shape or the space our bodies take up, we begin to challenge our minds by moving out of our comfort zone. This can be uncomfortable, but done in small bouts and with ease, can increase our window of tolerance or ability to manage stress.

    Notice the natural pace of our movement (walk, gesture, etc.) and try speeding it up and/or slowing it down. Same thing with space, can you take up more space? How does that feel?

    5. Move more, not better!

    Increasing all the movements at our disposal makes us more resilient in our minds. When you only move in so many ways, then you can only think in so many ways.

    When we move our bodies more, in new and unfamiliar ways, building a robust movement vocabulary, we increase our ability to transition through life, manage challenges, or at the very least, begin to connect with ourselves in a different way. This can lead toward more self-compassion and empathy.

    When I began moving more throughout my daily life, I had more compassion for myself and my children, who were also struggling to make sense of the world, just like me. I could model my own need for regulation and safety in my body, and as a family we were better for it.

    Your body, and its movement, is your greatest resource for emotional well-being and mental wellness. It often starts with noticing all the ways your body currently moves and inviting in new ways of moving whenever possible.

    There is no wrong way to do this, as it is an individualized practice designed to harness your own mind-body connection. Furthermore, it’s not the movement alone that matters but the execution as well. Being mindful and intentional as you engage in this practice is vital.

    Integrating the aforementioned tips into your lifestyle is a guaranteed way to A.C.E. your mental health. By becoming more AWARE of our movement, we can CHALLENGE our current behaviors and EXPAND our minds in order to live more emotionally regulated lives.

  • Are You Pathologizing Normal Emotions? It’s Not Always a Mental Illness

    Are You Pathologizing Normal Emotions? It’s Not Always a Mental Illness

    “Don’t believe everything you think.” ~Unknown

    Society is becoming more accepting of mental illness. That’s great, but there’s a downside that we need to talk about. Not everything is mental illness. We need to stop pathologizing every single thing that we feel.

    What I mean by pathologizing everything is jumping to diagnosing yourself after every tough feeling you have. It’s great to be self-aware, but I think we are taking that a little too far, and it’s causing more depression and anxiety.

    Yes, I said we are taking self-awareness too far. I stand by that, but I’ll explain the reasoning behind my belief. We are supposed to feel a range of emotions. It is normal to experience sadness, anger, irritability, anxiety, grief, or any of the feelings that exist from time to time.

    Since society is more accepting of mental health issues, we now want to label any uncomfortable feeling as mental illness. We diagnose ourselves with whatever mental illness we believe we have at the first sign of emotional pain.

    That leaves us feeling like we are so screwed up. We don’t need anything additional to make us feel like we’re screwed up! Most of us already feel this often enough as it is.

    Before you start listing all the reasons I’m wrong or how my view could be damaging, let me give you some examples. If you read them and agree, this could help you see that you and your feelings are more “normal” than you may think.

    Recently, I was talking to somebody who was in the process of buying a house for the first time. He was telling me that he was having a lot of anxiety related to the process and everything that he needed to get done.

    I could see the stress in his body and face.

    He has a history of generalized anxiety disorder, so when he feels even a little anxiety, he starts fearing that his disorder will return in full force.

    That’s a logical and valid fear. Anybody who has ever experienced clinical anxiety knows how scary it is to consider its return.

    However, he was missing something incredibly important. Buying a house, especially your first house, will always come with some “anxious-type” feelings.

    We need to learn how to normalize feelings that most people would have in the same situation. Panicking at the first sign of difficult feelings can turn those feelings into something much larger than they actually are.

    Just a couple of weeks ago, I slept twelve hours straight one night. I woke up with no energy or motivation whatsoever. I still didn’t want to get out of bed after twelve hours of sleep.

    That is incredibly abnormal for me. Typically, I wake up at about 4:00 am to write and do stuff for my other job. This gives me time to work while my family is asleep.

    That morning I woke up when my husband did, a few hours later than my normal. I told him I was just so tired and didn’t feel like doing anything, which is uncharacteristic of me.

    I felt “blah” and just wanted to stay in bed all day doing nothing. So, thirty minutes after waking up, that’s exactly what I did.

    My husband had to convince me to eat because nothing sounded good to me. I didn’t even want my normal glass of wine that evening.

    The next morning, I woke up feeling blah again and couldn’t shake it. I forced myself to function and play with my baby.

    He seemed to be feeling like me. That concerned me because he is so incredibly intuitive. I even thought maybe he was picking up on my feeling down and blah.

    When I got back in bed after lunch, I started worrying that I was depressed. From childhood and throughout my twenties, I was severely depressed. I did a lot of work to heal and haven’t had symptoms of depression in about ten years. A little bit of panic started rising with my negative self-talk.

    “What is wrong with you? Why can’t you just get out of bed? Maybe you should do some yoga instead of being so damn lazy.”

    I started telling myself that my depression was coming back, and in full force. Thankfully, I was able to put a stop to those thoughts pretty quickly.

    For some reason, my mind and body needed to rest. I just needed to allow myself to do that. Just because I was tired and didn’t feel like doing anything for a couple of days did not mean that I was depressed again.

    It was hard for me to acknowledge that I might actually have been sick, that there might have been a medical reason that I was so exhausted and didn’t feel well.

    The next morning, I went to an urgent care office. Well, what do you know? I had an ear infection in both ears and a fever, and my throat looked awful according to the nurse practitioner.

    Immediately my mind was put to rest. Major depressive disorder hadn’t reared its ugly head again. I was physically sick. My body was fighting an infection.

    For any of you who have experienced mental illness, you may also have this fear that one day it might return to say, “Hello. Remember me? I’m back!” Any time we get a hint of a difficult feeling, we jump to the conclusion that our anxiety, depression, or whatever we had is returning.

    This happened recently for a friend of mine. She has a history of major depressive disorder that plagued her for many years. She went to therapy and has been doing really well the last few years.

    She is an introvert who works in sales. Her company had a week-long meeting with all the managers and sales representatives. If you’ve ever been in sales or know somebody who has attended a company-wide meeting for several days, you know how much extroverted energy that takes.

    A few days after her meeting, she and I were on the phone. I asked her how her day was going. She told me that she just felt down and not motivated to do the things she needed to do.

    She had even scheduled an appointment with her psychiatrist for the next week to see if her medications needed to be adjusted. She was labeling herself as depressed and feeling scared.

    After we got off the phone, I started thinking about how I just didn’t think that she was depressed.

    I know her well and knew that being around a bunch of people for a week was exhausting for her, since she’s an introvert. I texted her about this and asked her if she thought her “depression” could simply be her needing to rest after having to be “on” for a week at her meetings.

    Quickly, she responded that she agreed and that it probably wasn’t her depression coming back to haunt her again. She recognized that she needed time to decompress from having been around so many people for several days.

    That’s just another example of how we pathologize feelings that are normal. We want to immediately label what we’re feeling as “wrong” or “unhealthy” and catastrophize it when it’s not actually a catastrophe. It’s often just a normal reaction to what we’ve experienced.

    It’s wonderful that society is becoming more aware and accepting of mental health and getting help. However, not everything is a symptom of mental illness. We need to stop diagnosing ourselves with mental illnesses based on social media memes or things we read or see.

    Also, we need to realize that it is perfectly normal to experience sadness and anxious feelings. That does not mean that we are suffering with mental illness.

    When we jump to diagnosing ourselves or others, we’re actually causing harm because we aren’t allowing ourselves to experience our feelings or normal things. Instead, we are trying to find a pathological reason we feel a certain way so we can eliminate it as soon as it pops up.

    That is not healthy. What is healthy is allowing ourselves to experience the feelings that come up, learning how to navigate those feelings in a healthy way, and choosing not to shame ourselves for having feelings that aren’t “positive.”

    So, the next time you’re going through a difficult time and you’re tempted to label it as mental illness or something that has to be stopped and “fixed” immediately, pause and ask yourself a few questions.

    Is this something that many people experience? If yes, then give yourself some grace and time to recover.

    Are the feelings I’m having normal based on my circumstances? If yes, then you don’t need to label them as mental illness or something that you should be gravely concerned about.

    Is this preventing me from completing the tasks I need to complete? If so, is it lasting for more than a week or two? Mental illness diagnoses require alterations from “normal” functioning.

    Have other people noticed me struggling, and are they concerned? If not, then you are probably experiencing normal feelings for the experience you’ve had.

    Use these questions as a guide and give yourself a little more grace when you have appropriate feelings and reactions to difficult experiences. Also, keep in mind that most of what you read that tells you that you have a mental illness probably isn’t truly qualified to do so.

  • Disordered Eating: What We Need to Understand and How to Heal

    Disordered Eating: What We Need to Understand and How to Heal

    “Food can distract you from your pain but food cannot take away your pain.” ~Karen Salmansohn

    Long before I was watching The Biggest Loser (a popular weight loss reality TV series) and trying to look like a swimsuit model, I was hiding in my closet eating candy, fiercely addicted to sugar.

    I remember feeling completely out of control over my cravings for all things sweet, and I didn’t know how to stop myself from eating until I felt sick. Food played a bigger role in my life than simply to support the processes in my body that lead to optimal health. To my “child self,” who wasn’t sure the world was a safe and welcoming place, food was a lifeboat.

    No little kid imagines, “Oh, it would be fun to starve myself and see what happens!” Or enjoys waking up in the middle of the night to work out for hours for the reward of being “loved” by those around them. But when faced with adversity in childhood, our number one goal is to survive, and in order to do so, we look for ways to reassure ourselves that we have some element of control.

    I grasped for anything I could to create a sense of agency and stability in my life, but at the cost of disconnecting from my inner wisdom and abandoning the core of who I was created to be. I was trying to survive by becoming less. Less of myself, less visible to the world around me, while at the same time crying out to be seen.

    As you consider your own childhood experiences with food, notice any emotions that come forward. How old were you? What was the backdrop in which these early experiences with food occurred?

    As I reflect on my own food story, I see how my emotional pain and a complicated relationship with food became intertwined. It was one of the only levers I could pull to manage the chaos both in my home and within myself.

    What appeared on the surface as a “fear of food” was in truth a fear of feeling. Feeling meant facing the ache of growing up in a home where strong emotions were suppressed, intuition ignored, and many conversations critical for the healthy maturation process of an adolescent, avoided.

    For example, any discussion around the topic of sexuality and what it meant to embody and express mine, was considered “taboo,” and shameful in the highly religious culture of my upbringing. Therefore, it is no coincidence my disordered eating patterns surfaced in tandem with my body’s transition into puberty.

    The changes in my body, at that time, felt terrifying, and the disordered eating served as an attempt to shut down the process of sexual maturation—a means to avoid the shame of being “sexual.”

    In my rehabilitation process from anorexia, bulimia, and orthorexia I found again and again that behind a binge, purge, or restrictive behavior was often a deep emotional pain I felt ill-equipped to meet and care for in a healing manner.

    Disordered eating was “pain-management.” Albeit not the most effective strategy for coping with distress, but it was the one I knew inside and out.

    The first time I recall recognizing disordered eating as a way to handle emotional turmoil, I was sitting in therapy feeling guarded and hesitant to believe that the healing answers lived anywhere in that room. I didn’t fully understand why I was there, aside from being told it was the “right” thing to do to get professional help.

    The therapist looked at me with concern in her eyes and asked, as if the answer should be simple, “Why are you so afraid of food? Why the eating disorder?”

    Now, I’d been asked that question by many well-meaning, worried adults before, but on this day, I felt an unexpected flood of emotion rise within, and fighting back tears, I replied,

    “I’m not afraid of food. I’m afraid my parents will divorce.”

    The moment the words left my mouth, I realized the question my heart had been desiring for someone to ask all along was: “Why the pain?”

    Think back to your childhood home and the role food played, beyond physical sustenance.

    Was food a reward for good behavior?

    Did food cause fights between your parents (i.e., one parent burns dinner, and the other explodes in anger)?

    Was food used as a way to “regulate” you—help you “calm down,” feel comforted when you were sad, or numb pain?

    When you faced challenges, was food more available than the ears of the adults in your life?

    Did you feel safe in your childhood home to express internal pain?

    Furthermore, if you grew up in an intense emotional climate, and your primary caregivers lacked the level of consciousness, and resources, to support you in learning healthy emotional regulation, food might have been the only “state-changer” (the only thing to take the edge off painful experiences) available. Food was your therapy.

    Emotions ended up being “fed” instead of felt. Eating became a way to cope with the feelings that seemed out of control in your life. Instead of fueling your body with the building blocks required for healing, you ate to numb your pain.

    Hear me when I say, there is no shame if you find yourself here—if you’re still stuck in the cycle of using food to survive your own emotional experience. You’re worthy of self-compassion—to be able to look back at your younger self and appreciate the ways you managed the pain you faced, with the resources you had. Whole-body rehabilitation starts by offering gentleness toward oneself.

    Another critical component of healing is giving yourself permission to have the conversations with yourself that, as a child, you didn’t or couldn’t have with others, but longed to. Doing so aids in establishing a “safe” environment within yourself for healing to flow. Set yourself free to explore any and every question that feels important to you.

    As I mentioned earlier, for me one such conversation was around what it meant to be a sexual being. For you this might mean exploring the confusion you felt when your parents split and the challenges you faced adjusting to new blended family dynamics, the loneliness you experienced as a child because it was hard for you to make friends, or a sense of shame about your family’s socioeconomic status.

    And if it was normal in your family of origin to bury and suppress half of the emotional spectrum, as it was in mine, especially the feelings that are uncomfortable, that require deeper self-inquiry, think about whether this culture aligns with your core values, now.

    What culture do you desire to cultivate for your future self around navigating emotional pain? This is your opportunity to excavate a new tunnel from which to travel from emotional pain to healing, for you and generations after you!

    Right now, you have an opportunity to build trust with yourself by committing to allowing every emotion to be experienced. What is one emotion that you believed as a child was “off limits?” What would change today if you allowed yourself to experience that emotion—to permit its flow through you?

    Listen to the little voice within you, with your heart wide open. Witness yourself. Be the listening ear you longed for when things first got “complicated” with food. Only then can you ask your younger self if they’re ready to entertain some alternative strategies, besides food, to help scary emotions move through the body.

    And when you are ready, here are some of the beautiful practices I have found on my own healing journey, that aid in building a space where the body feels free to release big feelings:

    1. Jin Shin Jyutsu- Finger Holding Practice

    This Japanese healing technique works to calm your energetic body. The practice involves holding each finger for one to three minutes on one hand, then repeating on the other hand. Each finger represents a different emotion:

    Thumb- Worry

    Pointer Finger- Fear

    Middle Finger- Anger

    Ring Finger- Insecurity and grief

    Pinkie- Self-confidence

    2. The 4-7-8 Breath or “Relaxing Breath”

    One benefit of this breath practice is its ability to strengthen “vagal tone.” The Vagus Nerve is the longest group of nerves in the body, running from your brain to your gut, and it is a key component in the activation of your parasympathetic nervous system—the branch of the autonomic nervous system that promotes the resting, digesting, and repairing in the body. Improving vagal tone can play a role in reducing stress and anxiety as well as:

    • Improve digestive health
    • Increase HRV (Heart Rate Variability)
    • And lower levels of inflammation in the body

    3. Walking outside barefoot

    Reconnecting to our roots, putting feet to earth, and absorbing the healing nutrients it has to offer can do a world of healing. When you put your bare feet on the earth, the electrical current coming from the ground contains an abundance of negative ions that are then absorbed by your skin and dispersed throughout the body. These negatively charged ions have been shown in clinical research to promote greater physical and psychological well-being.

    Try one or all of the techniques listed above to reconnect to your emotional body, ground yourself, and release stuck feelings. Notice any shifts you experience as a result.

    The goal is to start to create an environment of safety for your inner child to explore the previously forbidden emotions, without fear of abandonment or shame.

    No different from any other coping strategy, disordered eating can be a means to try to create the safety within that we lacked in our outside world early on in life. But there are other interventions, such as the ones mentioned above, that can offer a sense of safety without harm.

    Recovering from disordered eating comes back to finding healing ways to be there for your emotions, rather than numb them with food restriction, binging, or purging. Because it’s really not about the food at all. It’s about becoming the friend your body longed for in your most painful moments.

    Give your body a safe place to express, let go, and experience, without judgment, the total expanse of feelings that come with being human, and watch your relationship with food transform as a side effect.