Emotional Rescue

Hello!

It’s the season of the Moon, Cancer season, when we care deeply and feel strongly, pulled by our tidal waters into our emotional depths.

How do you stay afloat, swimming in the giant pool of your tender heart? Surfing the cyclic waves and balancing your many moods?

It’s a deep subject, I know, and our capacity to feel comfortable in this sensitive space is so personal. Understanding our emotions and attuning to our instinctive responses ~ and how we experience them ~ requires real reflection and self-awareness. Not easy when we’re activated. Not at all easy when our emotions are strong and we immediately shift into overwhelm, turn away and tap out.

Yep, I know that feeling. Years of switching off, la la la la, and shoving down caught up with me. All those difficult emotions I turned away from turned inward, stuck sensations manifesting as a whole raft of symptoms. Allergic to stress. The twinge of pain you can’t explain. All these sensitivities ~ quite possibly inflammatory feelings, fighting for my attention.

Our emotions can get stuck, feeling trapped in our body

According to brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor, when any emotion is triggered the chemical process felt in our body lasts less than 90 seconds. On the surface that sounds bearable, but the reality is staying present with the discomfort of an intense, uncomfortable emotion can be really challenging. And because we use clever strategies to bypass these sensations, they don’t go away easily. They stick around. Churning up other forgotten feelings, stroking old wounds. All exacerbating our current situation.

The process feels like it lasts so much longer than 90 seconds because by resisting the actual emotion we end up looping the thought pattern, analysing ourselves and dealing with the fallout for what seems like nine to 90 hours afterwards…

Making the whole thing feel worse.

I heard Kara Loewenthiel, author of Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head – and How to Get it Out, explain this process recently in a way that really resonated. She describes how a child moves through their feelings so quickly. They’re full of anger one minute and then 90 seconds later they’re ready to play. Ten minutes later they’re absolutely devastated by something else.

It seems like children cycle through so many feelings in such a short amount of time. But they don’t experience more emotions than us ~ they just haven’t learnt yet that it’s not okay to express their emotions. They feel them in their fullness and move on.

How do we move on?

First We Must Feel

There’s no getting around it. Our feelings need to find their way through us. They need their window of time. Whether it’s 90 seconds, or longer for you, your emotions need your felt attention.

All of them. The feel-good ones too. Because when we’re conditioned to block our emotions with defensive responses ~ you know, with all the distractions ~ we numb ourselves from feeling the full range of our emotions. We lose the ability to recognise a truly positive emotion worth hanging onto.

So, we give ourselves space and time to experience our emotions. If fully feeling it isn’t available in the moment, take a pause, breathe it in, and file it for very soon. We must come back to it.

You can’t reason with your emotions or intellectualise them. They won’t accept it.

We take the feeling in. Noticing the rise and the build. Where it lands in your body. Lie down if it’s possible. Breathe as soon as you can. Deep into your belly. This will bring you back, where you can be present. Expanding on the inhale, contracting on your exhale. Being with yourself.

Stay with yourself. Right there. For five seconds, 10 seconds, the full 90, it doesn’t matter. It won’t always feel intense and it won’t always last for 90 seconds. Not all emotions stimulate that amount of energy.

Your tolerance will rise. Your resistance will lower. Awarenesses will come. You’ll see your patterns and your distractions, reading them for what they are. Your emotions will move through you. And I swear, solutions will come to you.

You’ll know when there’s something for you to explore. An old truth, ancient knowledge. Something to unpack, address, work on.

Or just feel.

Your Rescue Remedy

You have your own inbuilt, fully functional emotional support system just waiting to look after you, aka your Moon.

Your Moon’s sign, its house placement and the energies plugging into it (known as ‘aspects’) tell you everything you need to know about your feeling nature. It describes all your instinctive go-to’s. How you like to soothe and nourish yourself. The way you emotionally regulate.

What is your Moon’s comedown of choice?

If you have a Fire sign Moon (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius), ironically, to feel really comfortable you’ll need action. You process feelings via movement. Anything physical lifts you up and releases internal pressure. Your emotional responses need attention and to be validated. Let your feelings be seen.

Say you have an Earth sign Moon (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn), you’ll want all kinds of personal touch to feel safe, sensing emotional security is close by. Daily rituals anchor and ground you and help you find balance. Explore pleasure in your body for self-soothing and comfort.

For Air signs Moons (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) any communication that receives a response will help you feel acknowledged and supported. Talk about your emotions without feeling pressure to know what they mean. Share your feelings rather than detach from them. Breathe for calm and presence.

Watery Moons (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces) need alone time so you can feel where you begin and others end, as opposed to feeling enmeshed in everyone’s emotions. Indulge your feelings with music, art, creativity and drama. Express your emotions, even the darkest ones. Let your tears out for a beautiful release.

A New Moon Full of Feeling

A New Moon is like a key, unlocking a part of your emotional self you’re ready to invest in.

In this Cancer New Moon portal give yourself over to the sensations that want to arise, letting your gut instincts take you where you need to feel more. Acknowledging your vulnerability and sensitivity. Most definitely your complexity.

Create space for the tenderness you want to receive, and give. Knowing when you apply great care for yourself, you’re so much better at looking after everyone around you. Extend that as far as your capacity can hold. If you can’t manage much, honour it, and if you can reach even further, go there.

Honestly bear witness to your emotional needs. Being truthful when you could ask for more ~ attention, compassion, love, hugs.

Find nourishment where you love it best, saying no to the things that trigger you. Be a better home for yourself, creating the kind of internal nest that supports you and doesn’t deplete you.

We’ll all get real and reality check our responses. Asking ourselves ‘Is this feeling a fact?’ Because we know our emotions are real but we accept the stories we build around them aren’t always.

This New Moon will gently guide us to the emotional truths we need to feel. We open ourselves to experiencing it all.

Love,

Kristin xxx