Mastering Emotional Self-Care

Feeling it to Heal it.

Happy new week dear friend!

The subject of emotions can be challenging because, in some societies and situations, it is frowned upon to show emotions. But these sentiments, no matter what type need to be expressed rather than suppressed, and some in a controlled manner. Emotions are closely related to our overall mental health so it is befitting to look at our emotional self-care in this week’s newsletter, following last week’s on mental self-care.

Taking care of our emotions is just as important as looking after our body or mind. Emotional self-care involves recognising how we feel, honouring those emotions, and giving ourselves the tools to process them in a healthy way.

Being able to process our emotions healthily doesn’t only affect our own well-being but also that of the people we interact with. With time, I have come to learn many different ways of taking care of myself emotionally and though my all-time go-to is journaling there are others that have also helped tremendously that I would like to share with you.

There are a few basics I keep on practising from time to time:

• Acknowledging and honouring my emotions

• Finding a healthy outlet for its release

• Reflecting on my role in the situation

• Setting healthy boundaries if necessary

• Acknowledging my effort in awareness.

The first step to a resolution of any sort is the acknowledgement of the challenge, so in order to find the right solution we need to acknowledge and honour whatever it is we are feeling and allow ourselves to feel and sit with it for some time. Sometimes expressing these can be hard and so this is when journaling comes in. With my journal, I can be unapologetically frank as to what I am feeling without causing any harm.

Then secondly, I will find an outlet for releasing and working through this emotion. Movement normally does it, be it a long walk, run or time at the gym but also a creative activity that calms your mind and brightens your mood will do. When I am no longer at the level of my previous state I then take a reflective moment to ask why I am or was so bothered by the situation. From here I become my own coach and spin the question around to - if my sister came to me for advice about this situation and how they were feeling what would my response be?

Whatever my answer is, will be my next course of action which mostly brings me back to setting better and healthier boundaries in order to protect my energy. We mostly get emotionally frustrated when our boundaries or our values are not being respected and so my emotions are a great tracker for being made aware of this. This awareness takes time to build and in itself is an achievement, in the sense that we take time to reflect and take responsibility for our actions and thoughts.

It is worth noting that we cannot affect the responses and actions of other people but we can manage our own responses and actions. So, in taking care of ourselves emotionally we need to master our feelings by creating a space to feel, process and honour our emotions. The key is allowing ourselves to express these healthily, even though it’s not always the easiest to do I would encourage that as we start a new week we create space for ourselves to explore our emotions so we can take better care of ourselves.

I’d love to hear how you take care of yourself emotionally so do share your thoughts in the comments. Have a great week ahead.

Love & light

Sheila Daisy