Here are some free powerful resources to reduce your stress instantly.
Remember we all have stress, it all depends what is going on in our lives.
Stress is all about emotions. We can feel positive stress and emotions like joy, happiness and gratitude. Those generally are not bothering us and do not create tension or pain. On the other hand there are negative emotions that we rather not want to be identified with.
If you do not allow yourself to feel these emotions, your brain might put up a diversion to protect you from any emotional ‘danger’ of these emotions coming into your awareness.
You certainly agree that it is better to be in balance and let all emotions flow through you like clouds in the sky.
Here four powerful tips to get empty that bucket of repressed emotions and get rid of tensions.
Tip 1 – Free writing exercise
The first tip is about a free writing exercise. Sit down in a quiet environment in which you feel safe and take a couple of blank sheets of paper. Take your most important current stress item you have in your life. What is it about? Note the subject down. You are going to write about it for minimum 15minutes. Not normal writing in which you are analyzing your stress. No, the idea is that you are really going to ‘empty your head’. It is unimportant if you write correct sentences, with capitals, dots, spaces. It is equally unimportant if it is reasonable, coherent. It doesn’t matter.
Write as fast as you can. Nobody is going to read it again, not even you. Write without capitals, dots, comma’s, paragraphs. All that perfectionism in writing… today we don’t care!!
Try to write down your thoughts as fast as possible. You will see that your thoughts and feelings will come quicker than your hand can write everything down… that is fine…. It can be scribbles, rounds, lines… it doesn’t matter. Everything is allowed. Only make sure to write as fast as you can with all the thoughts that come up. Notice the emotions that are present.
Set the alarm for 15minutes and GO!
Repeat this exercise as often as necessary. If you make it a daily habit for a month, you create new neural pathways in your brain to become more aware of your emotions and you keep your internal stress-bucket empty.
Tip 2 – Learn about emotions
Tip 2 is about learning about emotions so that you can discover how you ‘do’ emotions.
If you ask doctors how emotions work exactly, they often don’t know. There are many theories out there. A practical way to see it is that we feel them in the body. When we see a lion, signals are being sent to the body, breathing and heart beating are speeding up, all kinds of physical sensations appear. We feel fear!! Your mind wants you to feel the fear so that you can take action and run. The brain originates the triggers. The neurons fire into our body, resulting in blood flow, movements, breathing, emotions.
The experience is happening in the body
The origin is happening in the brain
You can also have emotional reactions on anything that happens in your life. Sadness, Anger, Guilt, Joy, Hate. An emotion is energy in motion. The emotion is stored in the limbic system of the brain. You’re aware of the conscious emotions you’re willing to look at. There are also emotions considered ‘dangerous’ by the brain, a facet you don’t want to face in your life. This pushing away of what you don’t want to feel is called repressing emotions. This can result in physical pain (it’s like a short-circuit in your limbic system of the brain). These are just emotions you’re not aware of as you’re not allowing them. Brajesh will share in the video how he numbed himself and not going to the emotions.
Tip 3 – Special attention for anger and rage
Anger and Rage are emotions that often we don’t want to be associated with. The result: we create habits of repressing them. That happens unconsciously. Life happens and there are also events in life to which we react with negative emotions. That is ok. You’re human.
Watch the video for inspiration.
Become aware of how you ‘do’ anger and rage.
Do you have beliefs on these emotions that these are violent?
Is that true?
Learn that you do not need to express your anger and rage, just become aware of them.
Tip 4 – How do I know if I repress emotions ?
A last free powerful resource to reduce stress is to check if you repress emotions and of course how you can undo that!
Typically, a person that represses emotions is
- engaged in a lot of story-telling without naming one single emotion
- talking rationally about emotions instead of feeling them which activates the prefrontal cortex, the thinking and executive part of the brain
- instead of talking in the I-form, they are talking in the third person (he/we) which dissociates yourself from your emotions
- laughing about serious situations
There are many examples in the video of how repressing of emotions can start.
How does repressing of emotions start? The first language we learn is the language about emotions. This often starts in childhood. When a child is not allowed to express or show the emotions it has, that’s where repression can start. Take the example of a child screaming in a public place. The parent might feel embarrassed and says to the child something like ‘Not now, later’. The parent would like to be seen as having a well-behaved and well-educated child so it tries to sooth the child. As the brain of a child is not yet ‘ripe’ it cannot put the reaction of the parent in perspective. Up till the age of 10-12 years the child experiences whatever happens in the first degree. So, the message the child might be getting is that his behaviour was ‘not good’ and due to that he might feel neglected, rejected, sad, angry or guilty.
Tip 5 – How to un-repress repressed emotions?
Un-repressing emotions is about activating the limbic system of the brain, where all the memories and emotions are stored.
A very powerful exercise that you can do is to sit down, take a specific emotion, like anger and ask yourself;
When and where in my life did I feel anger?
Just wait whatever comes up and observe that there are many more emotions that you can identify. If no other memories come up, ask: Where else?
Tak another emotion and ask the same question.
When and where in my life did I feel ……
Your brain will serve you as this is a command. It helps getting the repressed emotions into your awareness.
You might even get the idea that you are a really angry person! Well, if you have been repressing for many years, yeah, some shit will come to the surface. But let these emotions and memories just come and go.
No need to attach meaning to them. Just observe them without wanting to change them.