When you set aside time to listen, feel and be fully present you can begin to hear and understand the complex relationship between your mind, emotions and behaviour.

Everyone knows we have a conscious and a subconscious mind. The conscious mind is in our brain, it is rational and all our thoughts and conversations operate there. Our subconscious mind is much deeper it is in every cell in our body and runs our nervous system keeping our heart beating, immune system repairing, gut digesting and lungs breathing day and night without our conscious brain ever getting involved.

Our subconscious expresses its self through our emotions, which can be felt in our skin or any other tissue of our body. The conscious mind has given these emotions names like sad, happy, jealous, angry etc. Adults are familiar with emotions being expressed in this way, i.e. anxiety is often felt in the stomach and accompanied by feelings of nausea, fear can be expressed by the bladder as we urgently need to use the toilet, and worry can be felt in the lungs as we experience difficulty breathing. There are many more emotions and they can be felt and expressed in many combinations in any part of the body. As our emotions are being expressed we can either allow them to be expressed in the way that nature intended and learn from them and use this knowledge to guide future decisions, or we can try to control and suppress them by choosing behaviours to help us cope, forget or quieten them.

We live in a demanding world and the need to be able to do more each day often leaves us less time to listen to and resolve our own emotional needs. The stress of daily commitments to family and work, or long term illness or a trauma can focus our conscious mind on finding coping strategies so we can get through what needs to be done and hopefully find a quiet window in the future to give to ourselves.

There are many coping strategies which can include… focusing our mind so we can get basic tasks done, smoking, drinking, eating chocolate, gambling, working long hours, angry out bursts or obsessive compulsive behaviours. Unfortunately what happens is the more we ignore and suppress our emotions, the louder they become and the more we use habitual behaviours to help us cope, sometimes even becoming addicted to these behaviours.

When we feel an emotion our subconscious is communicating with us and wanting us to understand something, and follow our own advice so we can get back to feeling content, safe and connected. If we are not listening and do not follow our own internal advice the emotions will get stronger i.e. emotions like sadness, worry or frustration can become anxiety, depression, fear or anger.

Traditionally we could all listen to and understand our emotions intuitively, but as life has become more demanding it is a skill many have lost. However it is possible to relearn this skill and working with someone to guide you through the process you can learn to understand your subconscious, you can resolve and let go of emotional issues that have been held in your body, you can access resources that are within you and use these skills to free yourself from the past, to release yourself from addictive or destructive coping strategies and feel calm, content and more confident.

Amanda Roe is a trauma therapist, . She uses a range of holistic therapies to help you to improve your physical, mental and emotional health. To book a FREE 15min consultation with Amanda click here.