Emotional well-being and self-awareness to live best

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Emotional well-being and self-awareness

(Estimated Reading Time: 3 min, 24 sec)

Q: How do we achieve emotional well-being by consciously working on ourselves?

A. Mazzoldi - Consolation - Emotional well-being and self-awareness (detail) — A. Mazzoldi; Consolation: acrylic on canvas. Emotional well-being (detail)

The human body is constantly moving in its environment, searching for the most comfortable position and the greatest possible well-being.

Something not conscious, something instinctive, makes us choose the destination of our trip or the table at the restaurant. It makes us even decide how to put our foot on the ground to stay in balance or to find the least painful position if we have calluses on our feet.

This instinctive part of us “knows” what is good for us presently; if we listen to ourselves, we live better and healthier lives.

But it seldom happens; since childhood, we have learned to submit the instinct to rationality.

The latter does not tolerate limitations, even if they come from physiological and emotional needs.

The control over the body prevails over its actual needs, and it is difficult to find a balance, which allows you to stop before it is too late and pushes you to excess; so, you get to the point of imperfection or, even worse, disease.

Why does this happen?

The physical body connects with emotionality

Emotionality — made of more subtle energy — remodels and almost “sculpts” the physical body, which is heavier and denser.

If we observe a small child, in which emotionality develops fast and free, we notice the elasticity and softness of its tissues. If we look at an old man, he, while suffering the wear and tear of time, too often suffers from ailments that have another origin. Emotions (and, above all, emotional blocks) transform the physical body, for the better or for the worse; since it is the machine we need to live on this level, the better it works, the better we live.

We seek, without realizing it, the emotional environment that we like the most — or reassures us the most — and we try to live in it as long as possible, even at the expense of our inner well-being.

Emotional malaise

We can notice that, when we like to meet some people, it is their energy that we wish to connect with — while we avoid others with incompatible energies; but how do we react to the emotions that move within us? The ones that cause discomfort, or well-being? We can separate from people or environments we don’t like, but not from ourselves.

We protect ourselves by denying emotional discomfort, by distracting, by oversimplifying, but ignored emotional energy accumulates and damages the physical body as well.

Psychophysical well-being and introspection

Physical body’s problems may lead us back to emotional distress.

There are schools that teach how to “read” posture and signs on the physical body as an open book; Chinese medicine itself links the body with the emotional state.

It is possible, with physical exercises, manipulations, and treatments — caring for the physical body — to bring relief and restore balance.

However, if you do not do a conscious work on emotions — the cause of malaise — the malaise will come back.

For emotional well-being, we should manage emotions. If we set them free, they promote well-being. If we block them instead, they explode like bombs. We live in a continuous emotional turmoil, trying to avoid annoying emotions, such as fear and dissatisfaction. We divert them to others that are more reassuring, but that too often take out of the emotional reality in which we should live.

We behave self unconsciously, like desperate alcoholics who tell themselves that when they want to, they’ll stop drinking.

But the emotional reality commands, and by ignoring it, we pay the consequences.

You can lose energy by exhausting your body — through sports or hectic work. This helps to vent the balloon just enough to keep it from bursting. However, you are always at risk because — as soon as an accident or something else forces you into inactivity — the emotion comes back.

You can take alcohol and drugs, but they weaken you.

Work on emotional well-being

When B approached inner research, she had this reaction:

“What I understand about myself makes me feel worse! I contact aspects of myself I don’t like! And what I wish I can’t achieve, anyway!”

How many people think the same way?

How many introspective seekers have had periods of doubt and discouragement?

Occasionally, you feel disappointed because you can’t burden others with your discomfort; or because there is still no drug that can restore our health and vitality with no effort from us.

One day, I heard my mother muttering: “Is it possible that in the 21st century they still have found nothing to make people feel better?”

We try to rely on miraculous outside intervention for our well-being; we feel imprisoned, but we reject the fact that we too take part in our cage’s construction.

Who admits that the situations they live depend on their attitude? That they are where they wanted to be?

Years ago, I read Goddreck’s “Book of the ID.” It states that everything that happens to us — from a slip on the sidewalk to the breakup of our relationship, from illness to the loss of our engagement ring — happens with our silent participation. Something inside us works to make things happen. This intrigued and annoyed me at the same time.

I wanted to avoid facing such a responsibility, but I was curious to know more. “Is that possible?”

Introspection — Emotional research to live consciously

Emotional research is based on a desire to know more, to explore shadowy areas.

If you have it, you observe within yourself, and bring to light your innermost intentions — those that set the direction of your life, those that make things “happen”-.

This work for emotional well-being will also improve your health and your entire life.

How?

There is a difference between moving forward in the dark, flapping here and there, or with a lit flashlight in your hand. A flashlight that casts a wide beam of light as you go along.

Sometimes, children refuse a medicine because it’s bitter; or, perhaps, to make mom worry. They would rather not hear that it’s good for them. They live, to quote Lowen, on the pleasure principle and not on the reality principle.

Is health a right?

It would be nice to be always well and immediately silence any discomfort, whether small or large, and without having to suffer. We believe that health, like life, is a right!

People prefer aspirin to inner research, but if you don’t get to the root of the problem, it will come back in the same form or in different ways. Introspection is a strenuous task only if we don’t give up any of our physical habits, thinking habits, or emotional states.

There is no need for great sacrifices or drastic changes to improve our emotional well-being. It is simply necessary to look at what is boiling in the pot, to recognize the tensions of our body, to consider them as energy blockages. We need to allow energy to flow instead of blocking it.

Identifying physical tensions

Is that all?

That’s it. But it is not as simple as it seems; we’re not used to paying attention to physical tension until it turns into a stiffening or spasm.

What are the advantages of blocking energy and emotions?

There are many: to gain that power that makes you feel important, stronger and more secure; that power that allows you to stand out or to impose yourself on others, to advance by elbowing, to do what you want and to demand that others do what you want.

So, if you have a load of anger, you can attack and scare people; if the load is one of sadness, you can receive compassion and support; if you hate, you can hit, coerce and dominate, etc.

The list is endless, and we need only look around to understand how the mechanism works. But what has this to do with health?

The energy I accumulate acts first on me. There is no “good” energy that, blocked, does not deteriorate; it is necessary to listen to it, and release.

How can conscious observation help?

Observation focuses on the problem. People can choose to maintain or change their habits only if they are aware of what is happening inside them.

By observing, I allow the energy to show up and flow. My attention acts as a catalyst and promotes the transformation.

To observe, we need to be neutral; otherwise, we free energy from a cage and put it into another.

Our energy knows how to achieve emotional well-being.

If allowed, it can make a body area free from the tension that prevented it from working properly.

Aurora Mazzoldi

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