The Journey To Better Health
by Aarti Awatramani
From a shamanic perspective for health and wellness, it’s important to honor the range of feelings that come up for an individual. Feeling all emotions keeps energetic pathways clear in the body. This is important because when one is energetically healthy, one is physically healthy, as well. To illustrate how emotions work energetically to help with healing, here is an explanation/mini meditative exercise often shared in shamanic journeys:
You’re going along a highway and there are different exits with different emotions on the green exit signs. Each exit is an emotion that exists in your inner world, whether you are conscious of it or not. You have a few choices.
You can never take any exits and continue on the road. This is analogous to never stopping to feel a feeling or allowing emotions an opportunity to rise up. Or you can choose to only take so-called “good” exits, like happiness or joy or positivity, and never take any of the so-called “bad” exits, like anger or fear or sadness. In either case, if you never take an exit, you lose out on the chance to explore what’s behind that feeling.
If you only ever take the same exit or the same few exits, life becomes routine and rote. You never explore, you never learn something new, you never experience the richness that trying different roads offer you. As to the spiritual aspect, you avoid some of the lessons of your time here on Earth.
So as you’re going along the highway, notice the different exits. Pay attention to each one and see if you need to take that exit and explore more. Ultimately, what this vision was conveying was that feelings are a map to healing; that emotions and feelings provide information on what’s going on at a deeper level, and all one needs to do is follow the signs.
Take anxiety as an example, because it’s quite a common feeling. Many people feel anxious about a variety of things. Maybe it’s about their loved ones, their health, finances, jobs, businesses, etc. This anxiety isn’t a pleasant feeling, and it may feel overwhelming, so the tendency is to cut those feelings off, stuff them down or avoid them.
On an energetic level, by not allowing oneself to feel the feeling, in this case anxiety, the pressure at a certain point builds. The once smaller feeling is now getting bigger and bigger, creating an energetic blockage. It will do two things at this point: either it will start seeping into other areas of life or it begins to get stored somewhere in the body. Neither of these is good for health, as the blockage eventually leads to physical dis-ease. So how does one “feel their feelings”?
First, name it and acknowledge the existence of the emotion. It’s important for all emotions to have permission to express themselves. Every feeling is valid. Be aware not to control, deny or stuff down feelings, especially those seen as “bad”. There are no “bad” feelings, as feelings are just information and offer a map to healing.
Say out loud or in your head, “I am feeling… because of… It’s okay. It’s valid.” Then see if there’s anything there that you may need to learn. If not, release it.
Additional to note, feeling one’s emotions as described here is not about stewing in emotions indefinitely. It’s not about having any one emotion or feeling become all-consuming. It’s about allowing space for emotions and feelings to move through the body and out.
Also note, different emotions and feelings will hang around for varying lengths of time. Not everything needs to move through immediately, so approach this with kindness, gentleness and understanding for the self.
And lastly, remember there’s much to learn from positive emotions as there is from “negative” emotions.
Aarti Awatramani is an intuitive health coach, shaman, and the founder of Intuitively Well. For more information, visit IntuitivelyWell.com.
