Understanding Emotional Wellness
When I first started this journey back on Easter of 2012, I had no idea where it would lead me. Somehow it seemed as if I was being led away from a life that had not been right for me and shoved onto an entirely new path. Now almost eight years later I can see why and it seems that I’ve finally landed on a style of coaching that can be helpful to anyone at any time, emotional wellness. If there is one topic of conversation that could use a giant shove forward, I think it would be that of emotional wellness. This post doesn’t need to include a list of current events that are screaming, quite loudly for help. It would make sense that an introduction to emotional wellness would begin simply with emotions.
As I began to do my own personal growth work it became clear that I was very lost when it came to this subject. And now that I’ve done extensive coaching with a varied and wide range of clients, I’m seeing that this may be closer to being the norm for many if not most of us. In fact, I had to take a long hard look at my own parenting and what I had contributed to the pattern by neglecting my son’s emotional wellness, and what that now reflects on his adult life.
Somehow along our evolutionary path, learning about emotions seems to have subtly transformed into a belief that no learning was required, instead, it became assumed that we should instinctively know how to navigate our feelings. But as things have become more convenient, they have also become more complicated. The natural training through the examples of family and friends has not kept up with the changes and with each generation, as we move faster, it’s quite possible emotional intelligence is slowing down. Learning how to identify, understand, process, release, and regulate our emotions should not be considered something that comes to us naturally like our need for air, water, and food. The result is several generations who are staggeringly under-prepared for adulthood and we are seeing that this is truly disastrous.
We desperately need something that will take the fear away from the topic of emotional wellness, as so many of us have been conditioned to ignore what we are feeling. One thing that could have a large-scale impact is to differentiate between emotional wellness and mental wellness, which could be tough considering how much money there is to be made in pharmaceuticals. However, having the ability to pinpoint the difference could have a huge impact on things like addiction, depression, and anxiety. From my own personal experience, I was able to break a lifelong food addiction by understanding my own emotions and doing the work I needed to process and release those long trapped; secondly, I stumbled upon mindfulness once all that old baggage had been cleared.
Thank you for reading this first post in a series. I look forward to hearing feedback and am excited to write further on this topic.
This blog originally appeared on https://unpackingemotionalbaggage.com/
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Penny Payton is a certified energy leadership coach, childhood trauma researcher, and emotional self-awareness advocate and speaker. She has authored two books on the importance of unpacking emotional baggage. She has created a third which is in journal format. It’s a step-by-step guide on building a solid emotional foundation to processing and release trauma. Before, she spent over thirty years in corporate America until a near-death experience changed her life.
I agree we, as a society, need to make inroads into accepting the difference between mental and emotional illness. We need to do away with the “clouds” keeping women and especially men from examining human emotions within ourselves and others.
Yes I wish so badly that I could be seen as a person with trauma inform care instead of being expected to take medication that only makes me worse and alienates me even more from my family who as never understood either. My abuser got away with everything once discovered and somehow he convinced my family to abandon me as I was banned from his property for the following holidays. I still have letters from my grandmother begging me to be nice to my grandfather so that I could see her again. She was like my mom to me. We were very close. I got my love for the simple things, nature from her. She was the one who nurtured me and would listen to me when I needed to talk. But she did not stand up for me either. I was left to conform and to shrink in order to be a part of my family again but never truly was from that point on. I just became the black sheep bit always expected to be the one that showed up to help.
I had a horrible experience although I put CPTSD on my medical forms when I had an endoscopy done. Before being put under without telling me what they were going to do they shoved a disc like thing in my mouth and started to secure it. I felt like I could not swallow or breath and needed to do so. They were holding me down and I was trying to express that I was claustrophobic. They took it out and let me swallow but then proceeded again the same just holding me down tighter as I hear them say we need to get her knocked out.
Please let us know how we can help make so many systems, churches, people trauma informed and aware.