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08. Familial Emotional Expression Self-Reflection

Are you aware of your familial patterns of Emotional Expression and how you move your emotional energy?

There are healthy and unhealthy ways to express your emotions and energy that are moving through your body. 

If you allow your energy to move through your body and be healthily expressed, you can find a sense of flow with your emotions, what they are teaching you and why they are showing up when they do. They can be transformed and alchemized into insight and wisdom.

If you block the energy from moving through your body and attach or hold on to your emotions without expression, the energy gets stuck in your body and creates stagnation, congestion and blocks within you, on all levels of your being.

From the ages 0-7 years old you are a sponge for everything around you, including learning how to or how not to express your emotions. 

You learn from those around you how to behave, act and react to the various emotions experienced and often bring these ways of being into adulthood. 

If these patterns contain unhealthy forms of emotional expression, there is a great chance your unprocessed and repressed emotions are weighing you down and depleting your energy. 

Healthy expression of emotions is the goal, so you may reclaim your power and learn how to use emotions to support yourself. Reflect with all the emotions that naturally come up for you at this time. Remember this is simply to reflect and gain self-awareness, not to judge or criticize you.

 

Reflect on the prompts below for ~5-20 minutes a day for the next 3 days and then as often as desired. *Unless otherwise directed.

  • You don’t have to do anything or change anything, this practice is focused on bringing your awareness to your family and the familial expression that you experience.
  • Perform this self-reflection again in about 4 weeks to assess your progress and to gather any new information to continue to support you and your greatest good.
  • Optionally, use your testing technique to determine your optimal frequency and duration to use this reflection.

 

Familial Emotional Expression self-reflection prompts:

There is likely a range of how your family members may have dealt with their emotions. Reflect on how each of your parents and/or other significant childhood caregivers handled their emotions.

  • What sort of modeling did you have for emotional expression?
  • Your childhood family primarily dealt with Anger/Frustration/Irritation (or something similar) by:
    • Shaming for expressing it
    • Releasing anger on others or self
    • Inappropriately expressing feelings directly or openly (ie. throwing and breaking things, etc.) which afterwards may have felt shameful. 
    • Encouraging you to express your emotions in a healthy way.
    • Other_______
  • How do you currently deal with feeling Anger/Frustration/Irritation (or something similar)?
  • Your childhood family primarily dealt with Sadness/Grief/Loss/Depression/Crying (or something similar) by:
    • Shaming for expressing it: “Go to your room until you can be presentable.” “Stop being so emotional.”
    • Punishment for expressing it: “I’ll give you something to cry about”, “If you cry right now you are grounded, no tv, etc.”
    • Encouraging you to express your emotions in a healthy way
    • Other_______
  • How do you currently deal with feeling Sadness/Grief/Loss/Depression/Crying (or something similar)?
  • Your childhood family primarily dealt with Fear/Danger/Vulnerability/The Unknown/Confusion (or something similar) by:
    • Repressing or not expressing such feelings potentially due to fear of getting in trouble, being hurt, vulnerable or irritating a parent or guardian.
    • Telling you you aren’t really feeling what you are feeling. 
    • Encouraging you to express your emotions in a healthy way
    • Other_______
  • How do you currently deal with feeling Fear/Danger/Vulnerability/The Unknown/Confusion (or something similar)?
  • What other emotions were commonly expressed or repressed in your childhood?

 

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