Ep. 230- Doing Emotion Work 1.0 vs. Emotion Work 2.0 [Myths About Emotions Series]

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The final Myth in our Myths about Emotions Series is the belief that 'thinking through our emotions' is processing emotions.  

Processing emotions means changing your relationship with it.  

When you first learn about emotion work- learning how to recognize the emotions you're having and where they're located in your body can be super challenging.

You might experience a lot of resistance to going inside your body.

There's a lot of patience and time needed to create safety with Emotion work 1.0.

Alot of people have massive shifts in their lives with Emotion work 1.0.

However, this can still leave a gap for many who find that they're still not moving past an emotion of the past, or able to move forward.

Emotion work 2.0 is that next level that we need in order to heal. 

So how?  

1. Do the work with Emotion work 1.0

Learning to name the emotions is a huge first step. You have to wake up to your emotions. Learn a new emotional vocabulary. Then you have to get used to staying in your body and out of your head to notice where that emotion is located. Where is it? Relax into it. After relaxing- you can do the steps of what I call 'thinking through the emotion'. What color is it? What does it look like? Does it have a shape?

2. Use Emotion work 2.0 to go beyond.

After building trust with emotion work 1.0, you are ready to move on. This step takes time and sometimes takes the support of someone else to use this work. It's ok.

When you've been able to 'see' your emotion, I want you to practice moving that emotion to the side. That emotion (or how you see it) is protecting what is actually behind it. For many, they can see a smaller version of themselves. Others they can only hear things behind it. Trust yourself to experience it in a way that feels best to you.   

3. Keep practicing 

This takes time. Building trust in Emotion work 2.0 is a process. But this is where healing happens. Listen to that emotion. Validate it. 

Practice doing this MORE and use AND in your emotion work and life.