Healthy Emotional Habits
Brain, body and emotions unite in health
By Alison McEvoy
Our Autumn Issue is out now and available at a health store near you. The theme of this mag is Divine/Christ Consciousness! For a full list of our stockists, see https://www.positivelife.ie/magazine/stockists/
Emotional health exercise
At the end of Gabor Mate’s talk in Dublin this summer, he invited the audience to take part in an exercise. The charity event was organized by Jacqueline Kyne, a well-being event creator, and raised €33,000 for their main charity partner, Lumule Foundation. Additional funds went to local charity, Hugg, a suicide bereavement charity.
We were instructed to turn to the person next to us and take turns talking and silently, yet actively, listening to each other. The topic was to describe where we were having difficulty saying a ‘no’ that wanted to be said in our lives.
The exercise went very deep, very quickly. It became instantly apparent that the reasons for which we have trouble saying ‘no’ can reach far and deep into our beliefs and psyches. When I told a friend of the exercise a few days later, she curiously asked me if I had any ‘no’ that wanted to be said in relation to her.
Immediately, my ‘no’ surfaced. I told her that I always had such a horrible feeling when I was left standing outside her door for ages, when I visited, and I’d like that not to happen. As I spoke a feeling from way back began to rumble under my skin. A terrible discomfort rose up to meet me. I had a flashback of being locked in a room at my childminder’s house. Being left there for what felt like a very, very long time, to ‘sleep’ – which I never did. Feeling I was left standing behind a closed door was a trigger for me. Waiting, being left to wait, feeling unseen, unheard, uncared for…all lay behind the inexplicable anxiety I batted away from my conscious mind while waiting at my friend’s door.
From there on out my friend and I developed a system where I’d text her and we’d meet in the gardens in front of her home. This was healing happening. I had listened to myself and spoke up. Moreover, I was listened to by a compassionate other and action was taken which addressed my feelings. In this way, just as hurt occurs from seemingly tiny acts so healing can too. This is an important knowing to carry with us as we live and interact with one another.
…if we can understand our emotions in a healthy way, allow them to exist and function, then we are contributing towards our physical health
Mind-Body Connection
Gabor Mate is a Canadian-Hungarian physician. He worked in family practice for over twenty years, as medical co-ordinator of palliative care at Vancouver hospital for seven years and as staff physician at Portland Hotel, Vancouver for twelve years. He has also worked in facilities for those suffering from drug addiction for many years. Having worked within the medical frame-work for most of his career thus far Gabor has, in his latter years, stepped out of the framework it offers for health or, rather, treatment of symptoms of dis-ease.
Gabor not only advocates that the mind and body are connected as one, but also gives powerful examples of how they connect with, and reflect, one another;
“The brain and body systems that process emotions are intimately connected with the hormonal apparatus, the nervous system, and in particular the immune system.”
How did he find these examples? By simply observing, and spending time talking with, his patients throughout his years of service. He asked questions and, crucially, he listened deeply. It is astonishing how rare this behaviour has become. It’s equally fascinating how revealing and healing the simple acts of asking, listening and responding can be.
Expertly questioning and listening to his patients, Gabor discovered links between particular physical ailments and the presence of certain emotional processes. The emotions reflected in the bodily functions or dysfunctions. Where emotion was suppressed or blocked certain physical functions were also, ultimately, impeded.
Thus, if we can understand our emotions in a healthy way, allow them to exist and function, then we are contributing towards our physical health. The emotional component to a healthy lifestyle has been missing for so many of us and it is now time to integrate emotional healthy living habits into our daily routine.
Let’s take a look at an emotion which is complex and often misunderstood – Anger. Gabor helps us to see our anger in a positive light, to be clear on how anger is to be used as nature intended and to unblock any beliefs which led us to shame ourselves for, deny or suppress our anger.
Healthy Anger = Healthy immunity
Gabor links healthy anger to a healthy immune system. Anger is akin to an antibody in this understanding which Gabor gleaned from conversations with patients grappling with chronically compromised immune systems and thus, chronic illness.
When we feel angry in a healthy way, there is a flash of energy released which alerts us to the fact that a boundary has been breached. When we then use that fiery outburst of anger energy in a healthy way – to say or act out a firm ‘no’ to the breach, then we are using our anger to protect our emotional/mental boundaries and it works as nature intended. After the action has been taken, or words spoken, the anger naturally dissipates.
A healthy immune system responds similarly to breaches – such as when bacteria or virus entre our body-space – by releasing antibodies to defend, attack and neutralize the breach thereby protecting our physical health.
When we have chronic difficulty allowing our anger to express itself, and fulfil it’s function, this suppressed anger can ultimately effect the functioning of our immune system in Gabor’s understanding.
Self-inquiry tool
Some of Gabor’s parting words that summer evening in Dublin were to say that “this exercise will change your life.” It has already changed mine and I hope that you too will find it life enhancing. So, get out your notebooks, or make a poster for your wall, here is something you can do daily to tend to your emotional-mental-physical health.
You can do this exercise daily in your notebook or perhaps with a trusted friend weekly. Make it yours. Treat it as the valuable and powerful medicine it is!
“Where did you have difficulty expressing a ‘no’ that wanted to be expressed today/this week?
What is the impact on me of not saying this ‘no’?
What is the belief behind the difficulty?
Where did I learn those beliefs?
Who would I be if I didn’t believe that?
Where am I not saying a ‘yes’ where a yes wants to be said today/this week?”
Gabor has a range of books on parenthood, on the physical effects of emotional stressors (‘When the body says no’), on the emotional roots of addiction (‘In the realm of hungry ghosts’) and on trauma, illness and healing (‘The Myth of normal’). He is a truly great mind and compassionate heart of our times.
