Gifts in Befriending Your Emotions
How noticing and feeling your emotions can allow you to let go and move forward.
đ Hi friend ~ Welcome to Unfold, a project exploring what it means to be an embodied and empowered human. My name is Ocean Kiani and I use this newsletter to muse on play, movement, relating, creativity, and reality. Thank you for being here đ
You might have noticed a little pause in my updates here.
I could pretend it was a planned sabbatical for the final month of summer. Or that I was too busy or even that I had writerâs block. But the reality is that I was working through some intense emotions which made showing up here feel hard.
But Iâm back with a new sense of purpose and energy and want to share my story of how moving through my feelings, rather than around them, has helped me find my feet again.Â
~~~
Avoiding feelings of grief.
The best way to summarise how I was feeling at the lowest of the low points was an overwhelming awareness of my vulnerability as a human. I was acutely aware of the âflesh and bone-nessâ of my body, its vulnerability and defenselessness in the face of the natural forces of ageing, and it was abundantly clear to me that I was going to die one day.Â
Yeah.
This was overwhelming and I didnât know what to do with these feelings. So I did what I knew best, and kept moving.Â
On reflection, these feelings were the byproduct of the grief of a loss from a couple of months ago that I hadnât processed. I had to go through a lot of pain and suffering to get to the point where I could move on and feel inspired and light again. The clichĂ© of going into the darkness in order to find the light defined my experience and hopefully can provide inspiration for anyone who also tends to resist feeling big feelings.Â
Last Sunday, after a couple of months of non-stop travel and activities, I was greeted by a day where I had absolutely nowhere to be and nothing to do. There was nothing scheduled in my calendar, there were no pressing tasks to be getting on with, and there was no one vying for my time. I could just be and let the day unfold.Â
Days like this equal parts terrify me and are days that I constantly romanticise and long for. I seem to always be torn between the tension of filling my schedule with âthingsâ â oh I have some time here; Iâll book a yoga class, Iâll go for a run, Iâll see if so and so is free â and deeply yearning for a day where I can just follow my own rhythm without time constraints.
When reflecting on this tendency to fill my time with activities it became clear to me that for the past couple of months, itâs been a coping mechanism for avoiding painful and uncomfortable feelings of grief.Â
So on this Sunday, I resisted the urge to schedule things in and followed my own rhythm. I pottered around the house, took myself to the cinema, made a delicious curry and read my book. All things which came from a desire rather than a âshouldâ. It felt good. But this is where the feelings crept in.Â
Feelings of inadequacy, grief, loss and fear all came up in full force. It felt like I was grieving the world and everything Iâve ever lost, will lose and didnât have to begin with. Feelings I hadnât even been aware were there until they came up.Â
Instead of pushing them down, I moved my body and let them express. After the movement, I cried like a baby. But it wasnât a cathartic crying. It felt like the tap was just turning on and these feelings were here to stay.
The following day, I had commitments out in the world. My schedule was packed with meetings and things I needed to do. Everything inside me wanted to shut the world out. My body felt heavy and sluggish whilst simultaneously erratic. I was horrible to my husband, I kept crying and felt like I was floating above myself, not quite connected to reality. Instead of noticing this and making accommodations like working from home instead of a coffee shop, I pushed through and carried on.
Creating a container to feel the emotions.
The next day, I woke up in a lot of pain. My whole body was screaming at me to rest. My eyelids were heavy, my joints hurt, my muscles were weak. I had a personal training session and as soon as I picked up the weights I wanted to cry. It felt like I was breaking and I was genuinely concerned for my ability to function. But still, I carried on.Â
Then came 3pm. The glorious hour of my therapy session. And this is where the lightbulb went off.
I could let myself cry and not stop crying. I could just be with the feelings. Â
We explored the feelings of grief and their accompanying physical sensations, and I noticed how Iâd been keeping myself busy to avoid feeling because I didnât know how to process these emotions. It felt like I needed some specific practice or protocol to do when these feelings came up so they could be processed.Â
To all this, she simply said âare you not doing it right now?â. At this point I was practically laying down, feeling the full weight of my body and the emotions, and putting voice to what I was feeling.Â
She was right, I was doing it now.Â
It didnât have to be some big aha moment or a half-day sound healing workshop or massage treatment. I simply had to sit there and acknowledge my emotions, without trying to change them. I just had to feel them.Â
Of course, the safety of the therapy container played a large role in helping me feel safe to express such big feelings and that should be acknowledged too. But the key takeaway for me is that all emotions, big and small, are energy in motion and by expressing them, we stop them from getting stuck and reduce their hold on us.Â
After therapy, I lay down for two hours before slowly emerging back into the world. I went easy on myself and stopped pushing so hard. I took pauses to notice how I was feeling before taking action. I asked myself if what Iâd planned to do would be the thing that served me. By placing my awareness on my body and emotions in this way, emotions were felt and eventually, they passed. I woke up the next day full of energy and lightness. The world looked brighter and I felt more me again.Â
Letting go to move on.
Interestingly, my period had been two weeks late at this point. And a couple of days later, it came â perhaps a symbol of the grief my body was holding being let go.Â
Iâm aware that I had to go through all this in order to come to any meaningful insights, learn from them and come out the other side. But the mistake I made was to keep avoiding and in turn, caused more suffering than needed.Â
So my simple advice for future-me and anyone else who might struggle with feeling their feelings is to:Â
Journal regularly:Â this can help to bring your attention inward and notice whatâs alive in you, whilst also putting voice to feelings.Â
Move regularly: similar to journaling, it can help the physical manifestation of emotions to move and express themselves in a safe and low-stakes environment.
Go easy on yourself and remember that you donât need to try so hard.Â
And now Iâm alive and inspired again. Itâs funny because I now have lots of energy and an abundance of ideas and desires. So to those, I will simply notice, write them down and do what serves me now.Â
A simple practice.
Iâm a big fan of Yoga Nidra or Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR). You simply put awareness onto each part of your body. If, like me, you tend to dissociate from your body and feelings, this can be a powerful practice for bringing awareness back into your body and noticing the nuanced feelings happening down there.Â
I really like Andrew Hubermanâs as itâs only 10 minutes and no frills. Generally, Iâll do it daily at around 2-3pm, when my energy naturally lulls.
Curious to hear what practices you have in your toolkitâŠ
Fun things happening in my world.
1 // Last week, I ran an in-person workshop on using play in business for Knotel Old Sessions House, a really beautiful members club in Farringdon. This happened in the midst of all the big feelings, and there was a lot of resistance to doing it. But I showed up, went easy on myself and had loads of fun in the process!
2 // Thereâs recently been an influx of interest in Unfold, my online program designed to help people bring more play into their day. Iâm so excited that itâs landed with people, and am struggling with timezone coordination, so Iâm playing around with how to re-model it to a monthly membership rather than a cohort-based courseâŠÂ
3 // The next cohort of Nervous System Mastery is opening its doors today. As Community Manager, itâs been a load of fun building out new features to enhance the student experience, and Iâm honoured to support the unfolding journey of over 700 students to become more in tune with their internal landscapes. Letâs go!Â
4 // Every Thursday, Iâve been running a free online movement session and Iâm grateful to have regulars showing up every week. This practice has been an essential part of my journey to feeling my emotions and itâs part of my mission to make this practice accessible to as many people as possible â so these will always be free. Join us.Â