Emotional Intelligence: Connecting to our Emotions as Wisdom Teachers

We are all emotional beings at our core, and we exist to express emotions freely, directly, fluidly and openly. Emotions serve as our inborn compass through life, and hold the potential to support us in navigating the world around us. Emotions allow us to embody an inner-outer symbiosis... if and only if we heed their subtle (and, at times, not so subtle) wisdom. Emotions are intelligent and intuitive signals, ever calling us into alignment with our essential (core) truth. Yet somewhere along the way, many of us learned to repress our emotions, especially those perceived as “uncomfortable” or “unwanted,” in order to fit in, earn love, prove worth, put on a “happy face”, or even to be accepted by those around us. Many of us were also raised in environments where it was not safe, welcomed or invited to express the fullness of who we were, or the depth, variety and breadth of what we were emotionally experiencing, as young and sensitive children learning how to relate to others, interpret reality, and move through the world.

Growing up, most of us were not shown healthy modeling or how to process more intricate, multilayered emotions. Most were also never taught that emotions are vastly intelligent, and exist as sophisticated signals of our deepest knowing. Our lens of perception was instead wielded as a byproduct of an emotionally-unevolved society— a society unknowingly perpetuating conditioned reactivity and unconscious behavior as a way of life. A society predicated on denial, disassociation and multi-spectrum numbing of all that isn't "pleasant". A society so deeply out of touch with themselves, each other, and the web of life around them. The very foundation of our modern society is a critical underlying root of why we have become so disconnected as a people...

So in turn, to cope with our environment and an emotionally-immature collective, we learned to bury difficult emotional content and deeper un-processed pain, pushing it down so far we almost forgot it was there. Almost... Yet when we relegate experiences and imprints to our subconscious, they do not go anywhere, they simply begin to more covertly influence our actions, motivators and behavior, controlling and driving us without our conscious awareness. 

“Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” — Carl Gustav Jung

And so... to hide our vulnerability in a world that could not fully receive it, we masked, we armored, we walled off, and we numbed our feelings. We found coping mechanisms. We tucked our raw and tender emotions away, and went on to pretend, avoid, and deny “the uncomfortable” and "unwanted", in an effort of self-preservation. Even parts of our spirituality helped us to perpetuate this avoidance, by the promises of love and light-filled bubbles to conveniently insulate us from our inner work.

But what happens when we hide our deeper emotionality is that we end up hiding from life itself. Because in numbing the pain, hurt, grief, sorrow and discomfort, we unknowingly numb the pleasure, beauty, ecstasy, creativity and other sublime octaves of our existence too. What many don't realize is that when the heart closes, it's a complete experience... Meaning, when we close down the heart, we close it down to everything. Thus, to open back up to life again, we must make space to receive, witness and commune with the totality of our lived experience, even where it’s tender, even where it hurts. And the delicate, wounded aspects of ourselves deserve to be known, held and honored just as much as the rest. They also yearn to be heard, for they too are a part of us. As our wholeness includes all things which exist within.

Beloved, we have come here to connect to the entire spectrum of life, from untethered ecstasy to agonizing pain, and everything in-between. For such is the richness of feeling and ultimately of this sacred earthwalk. This is why we exist… To know the magnitude of all manifest emotion through our attuned senses and exquisite body temples.

Yet when uncomfortable emotions are pushed down far enough, these unresolved textures become trapped in our body where they build and fester, draining our life-force energy, and leading to burnout, dysregulation, emotional blockages, and eventually dis-ease. When we perpetually repress emotions, we create psycho-emotional toxicity in our body, mind, heart and spirit. This unprocessed emotional energy stores in our organs, muscles, and tissues, eventually resulting in inflammation and chronic health problems, significantly affecting our overall well-being.

Yet, as we continuously explore in our Academy, the opposite of repression is expression! We must feel in order to heal— i.e. we must fully experience, meet and move through our emotional content in order to process and integrate it into higher understanding and wisdom. Psychology literally means “the study of the soul” and spiritual growth cannot exist without a genuine exploration of the deeper facets of self— our subconscious, emotional body, pain body, cellular imprinting and remaining inner work— in order to evolve into our most actualized soul expression. No real growth into higher states of consciousness can occur until one begins to deeply meet themselves on the most intimate levels. This is the way of mastery.

So… The sacred invitation is to begin to welcome and invite all emotions that are living within you (even the ones that are uncomfortable) as intelligent messengers [of your innermost knowing]. Through this practice, we begin to honor all of our emotions and give them the space they deserve— space to be seen, met, acknowledged, processed and integrated. And through this essential meeting place of embracing what is just as it is, we are able to illuminate the inner forces (blocks, wounds, self-limiting beliefs, traumas, etc) which keep us marooned from our true power and potential, bringing them to the surface for new levels of healing and transmutation. 

The next step after welcoming these textures in, is to accept and integrate the totality of what is showing up in our consciousness, and trust that life is happening for us and our soul’s continued growth, not “to” us. If something in our outer world is not serving us, life is indeed still at work. We may ask ourselves in this case, what are we believing about ourselves to allow this external circumstance to continue? Is there a boundary that can be claimed, a power we need to step into, or a disempowering belief we need to dismantle? Life will continue to reflect our inner belief structure back to us until we reclaim our creations. Remember, we are the life artist's weaving our tapestry. So the question remains, what do you want to create on the great canvas of life?

To meet our total emotional body is an art from we must learn. It requires, first and foremost, a compassionate willingness to journey inwards and meet ourselves on the deepest levels. This is the gateway to truly know thyself.

Thus, it becomes our great work to begin to turn toward what remains unhealed, unintegrated and unacknowledged, not away from it. 

The work asks us to meet ourselves even there, even where it hurts, even where it's tender.

By communing with any denied or suppressed parts of our being, we bring those parts of self the nutrients they require to heal and transform. We offer them the sacred balms of love, compassion and presence. These may also be parts we have rejected, criticized, abandoned, ignored, or generally have not loved as they are. This is also known as soul retrieval, the act of retrieving any fragmented aspects of our being and returning them to the seat of our wholeness. Most of the time, these neglected parts of us only want to be seen, acknowledged, and loved without condition. It really is that simple.

By leaning in where we once pushed away, we create the space to truly be with what is presenting itself within us, allowing ourselves to reap the greater hidden wisdom. In turn, we are finally able to process and complete the cycle of the experience(s) and transmute our wounds into wisdom. 

In all actuality, there is no such thing as “negative emotion”. It is only our actions which can become negative or harmful if we are not allowing ourselves to feel the raw expression of the emotion in a healthy way, and instead projecting it or disowning in a destructive manner. “Negative emotion” is only that which is unintegrated within ourselves; likely something we are avoiding or running from.

Yet, when something is integrated, it is no longer perceived as negative, frightening or disturbing.

The majority of unconscious pain is present because the feelings associated with it are unintegrated. 

Integration ignites the process of healing and clearing.

All aspects of life have both positive and negative complements. It is only our resistance to the  perceived “negative” which creates prolonged suffering. We must let go of the belief that only “positivity” is welcome or allowed in. That only the emotions which “feel good” deserve space. Rather, ALL emotions are a signal from the multidimensional intelligence that lives within us. And each aspect of our feeling body is essential, valid and even sacred. Uncomfortable emotions are simply a cry from our soul for us to radically listen; to turn inward, surrender and align to the wisdom beneath them. Uncomfortable emotions exist to call us home, back to ourselves. And when we deny or reject them, they only magnify, their whispers soon growing to roars.

Thus, we must learn how to intimately meet and integrate (not avoid, deny or attempt to prematurely release) what we perceive as “negative”. And we must trust that each facet within us is there to teach us something precious about ourselves before we may move past it. Can we begin to recognize emotions as our teachers?

Wishing away our inner work can’t happen.

We must be brave and courageous enough to meet ourselves in our sacred totality.

This is alchemy.

This is growth.

This is mastery.

So… What if, right here and now, you gave yourself radical permission to allow, connect to and express the fullness of your moment-to-moment relationship with life? In the understanding that freedom lives on the other side of your gentle surrender to what is moving through you… As all emotion is energy in motion that is asking to be expressed, witnessed and honored.

Giving yourself this undiluted permission to feel

though a compassionate and open heart,

without repressing, numbing or disassociating any sensation

is where the magic of transformation is born—

when we can begin to accept the breadth and depth of our experience just as it is,

and allow life to flow through us, as us.

Here, we have no resistance to the now

(or to past textures of our lived experience yearning to be integrated)...

Life soon becomes far more effortless, graceful and fluid.

To learn more on how Breathwork allow us to connect to the full range of our emotional body, you can also check out Part 1 of our Podcast here!

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NOTE: ALL WORDS ARE COPYRIGHTED (and birthed from the mind/heart/soul of Kaya Leigh), unless the source is clearly cited otherwise. Please think again before taking our words as your own, as dozens have done over the years. This is our deepest life’s work. Please respect and honor it as sacred.

© 2021 BY KAYA LEIGH AND SACRED BREATH ACADEMY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. All content is for your personal reference and is not intended to be shared, copied or otherwise distributed. Doing so is an infringement of copyrighted intellectual property. Small quotes may be shared and cited as 'Sacred Breath Academy' with permission.