Emotions and sophrology
Emotions are real treasures of nature. Most of the time we are not comfortable with the way of welcoming them, or even crossing them.
Behind an emotion sometimes hides a need.
Fear signals danger. Our need to be reassured. Fear is associated with a state of tension, with accelerated breathing … Deep breathing allows us to find the calm necessary to identify our emotions, clarify, ask ourselves, verbalize, write, return to the here and now. By working the diaphragm, when we breathe, it lowers so that the lungs fill with air. It presses on the viscera of the abdomen and the belly swells. Breathing can significantly reduce anxiety, fear.
Anger is used to mobilize our energy to change things that do not suit us, and also to set a limit.
Sadness is used to make us accept what can be changed.
Joy helps to circulate this flow of energy, of vitality.
Emotion just e-movere, move beyond, e-move. Movement is life !
Various parts of the brain are responsible for processing emotions, the limbic system in particular. This, which we can call the emotional brain, controls everything that governs our psychological well-being and much of our bodily well-being.
But it is vulnerable and can cause malfunctions. Most emotional disorders originate from unpleasant or painful experiences in the past.
It is of paramount importance to be aware of this functioning. Because it can color our present … As if it no longer belonged to us in its objective reality but was trapped in distant emotions, influencing our feelings and our behaviors, sometimes a long time later.
Our brain and body don’t forget anything.
Emotions that have not been expressed and experienced in due time are well memorized, stored, encapsulated, engramed, “frozen”, ready to be reactivated as soon as something resembles this emotional experience that had not been experienced until end. The emotion goes through … like a discharge …
Mindfulness activates the middle regions of our brain and helps promote coordination between the prefontal cortex and the limbic system, which are key neural substrates for secure attachment.
This brain has natural self-healing mechanisms comparable to many other mechanisms in the body, such as wound healing, the elimination of microbes. Hence the importance of appropriating breathing techniques, verbalization, welcoming emotion with kindness, recognizing it, crossing it consciously so that it does not take other paths, at the risk that the body takes over by “somatizing”. By verbalizing and describing what you are feeling, you are strengthening the regulation of the limbic system by the frontal lobe.
V. Gabriel Dubourg, Sophrologist