Have you noticed that most ways that we’ve learned to handle feelings and emotions are ineffective, dysfunctional, and even destructive?
Most people don’t know what to do with feelings, especially in high volumes. Yet when we learn to properly digest and metabolize emotions, we can transmute them into pure
creative life force and vitality.
Dysfunctional way of dealing with emotions #1: Bury them.
Shut down and cut off from emotions so you don’t have to brave the discomfort. Bury them inside where they’ll take root into your body and fester.
Dysfunctional way of dealing with emotions #2: Dump them on others.
We can deal with the discomfort of unprocessed feelings by spewing them on others, from our closest loved ones to random strangers on the internet.
Dysfunctional way of dealing with emotions #3: Distract and numb out.
We have plenty of ‘fun’ socially acceptable numbing and dissociating options: drinking, smoking, TV, gaming, IG scrolling, over eating, online shopping, list goes on….
Dysfunctional way of dealing with emotions #4: Talk in circles.
Talking about the same issue over and over in our own head, to our best friend, or our therapist. We think we’re ‘working it out’ and ‘solving the problem’ but it’s another escape route. Trying to work through with the mind what can only be processed by our body, our breath, the earth
If none of these work, then how do we process feelings effectively?
Embodiment.
Embodiment works 100% of the time when we have the courage to stay in our body, stay with the feeling, and work with the energy of the feeling using the 5 Pathways: breath, movement, sound, touch, and imagery.
Depending on the emotion and its intensity, we work with one of our 3 core practices:
- Primal Aliveness: Sound, shake, press, stomp, roar
- Deep Nourishment: Lie down and let the earth hold you
- Luscious Movement: soften, roll, yawn-stretch, flow
When we develop a consistent embodiment practice, we learn these new pathways to process our emotions, and the result is feeling more:
- soft and relaxed
- free and buoyant
- vital and alive
- grounded and steady
- clear and focused
- open and present
If you’re interested in learning how to effectively process emotions through embodiment practice, but not sure where to start, you can get our free Embodiment Starter Kit here or check out our Amba Community, where we offer weekly live-streamed embodiment circles, monthly workshops, an on-demand library full of practices and tools, and more!