Emotional Freedom

Emotional Freedom respects that as human beings, we will experience the full spectrum of emotions. With emotional freedom, we become more curious than judgmental. We're able to explore the intelligence and guidance accompanying all our feelings.

With awareness and skill, we learn to "be with" the feelings in our body and thoughts in our head, gain insight and wisdom, and regulate enough so that even if the emotions are intense and hard, we still love and accept ourselves and are free to choose actions that enhance our thriving.

Helps develop the courage to be with all our thoughts and feelings without disconnecting or self-medicating in unhealthy ways.
Gives a sense we can manage our emotions which helps us calm in times of fear and feel more confident during times of uncertainty.
Focusing on emotional freedom for ourselves and others puts us in touch with energies and behaviors that enhance our we-spaces.
Helps us grow in grounded presence which helps ourselves and others feel safe, respected, and free to express their own feelings, too, in healthier ways.

Confidence Builds with Emotional Self-Management

When our primitive brain hijacks us, it's hard on our confidence. We can find ourselves reacting in ways that don't feel like "us." It's like, "Where did THAT come from?!"

We're animals. We react. But because we're also imaginative, we can react to fears about the future, beliefs we've picked up, and associations we've made about what has hurt us in the past.

The craving to be free of these kinds of limitations and unhelpful reactions is at the core of the drive to be emotionally self-managed.

When a feeling arises, we want to know how to be with it — even if intense.

Rather than numbing out, running away, or fighting with how we feel, we can bring awareness to the thoughts and body sensations.

Rather than suppressing our feelings or pretending we don't have them, we can accept where we are and how we feel. Our feelings are real.

Rather than stay stuck, we can adapt by exploring choices. This helps us feel a bit more calm and confident.

Knowing we can make a choice and take a small step, we get to move into inspired action.

Following an action, we take a powerful pause and allow our body-mind to discover our next YES.

Emotional freedom as a concept reminds us to self-observe. Am I feeling free right now? Ahhh, I'm not! Then, it's time to tend to my emotional freedom with a dose of compassion and skill.

Emotional Sewage, Junk, and Pollution

We eat and drink. Then we poop and pee. That's one core aspect of what it means to be ALIVE.

We grow and interact. We feel and release. Some of the things we feel are pretty shitty. Some people and situations piss us off.

Yet, weirdly, some people who understand that it's natural to poop and pee find emotional stuff "unnecessary" or "to be avoided." Good luck with that.

Part of the challenge here is that we're still in the process of developing ways to handle normal, natural emotions in ways that do not… pollute.

What is our equivalent of the toilet when we're pissed off? Is it taking it out on others?

Well, it wasn't THAT long ago when people just tossed their poop and pee out the window and into the streets. Some do that with their emotions.

It's time to upgrade how we handle our emotional sewage.

Same goes for our junk. Have you ever seen a discarded washing machine tossed in a ditch along the side of the road? That's not good for the environment. It doesn't respect the lives and property of others. The alternative can't be holding onto our junk until we are crushed by it, either.

To describe emotions in this way we hope makes it clear that for each of us, there are normal emotional byproducts of living we need to tend to in a way that is hygenic and ideally not negatively impactful on others.

Same with our "junk" — limiting beliefs, vows that no longer serve us, obligations and family rules that are dysfunctional, and traumas and griefs that have now been healed.

The transformation and upcycling of emotional energy is essential. We're healing our emotional world together… rather than adding to the emotional pollution. This is both a personal devotion to emotional self-care and a community engagement to support healthy emotional processing.

Tending to the pollution in our emotional world is all our response-ability.

Emotional Skills are Real Skills

It's true that emotional skills are not industrial skills. The industrial age needed compliance and conformity — doing what the boss told you to do.

Emotional skills used to be called "soft skills." Compared to welding or accounting, they were viewed as "nice to have" skills — but certainly not necessary in order to succeed.

Times are changing. For people who want to thrive, it's the emotional skills that are becoming essential.

Real skills — like emotional self-management — have practical value because, let’s be honest: if you had to choose between co-creating with someone who was anxious and doubting and someone who was authentically calm and confident, who would you choose?

Wouldn’t that be true if picking a business partner… or friend… or lover… or someone to build your house?

We want to co-create with people who can be calm and confident. When they can't, when they are triggered or coping, we want honesty about their feelings and also a growing ability to self- and co-regulate.

Emotional skills take effort. We can become emotionally freer by practicing and using emotional technologies like EFT Tapping, meditation, circling, somatic movement, and more.

Useful Questions

Am I feeling free right now?
How do I not feel free right now?
Are there feelings I don't believe I'm "allowed" to have?
What do I not accept about myself and my emotions?
How would I like to feel?
Might I choose to accept myself a bit more deeply and completely… even though I have these emotions?

Resources

Emotional Freedom Tapping (EFT) - Free Guide
Emotional Freedom Coaching - Private Sessions, Self-Paces Programs, Group Coaching Circles
Boost Your Value with Emotional Skills - Real Skills Workshop
Build Your Emotional Resilience - Real Skills Workshop

Related Concepts

Acceptance, EFT Tapping, Awareness, Body Guidance, Real Skills, Co-Regulation, We-Space, Primitive Brain, Trauma-Informed, Limiting Beliefs, Safety and Respect, Body Guidance, Presence, Calm and Confident