Holding Pain: How Toxic Emotions Get Stuck In the Body

If you prefer to listen, here's the podcast version of this post:

Just like stress can cause you to get a tight knot in the muscles of your back, so too can other parts of your body hold tight to things like fear or anger or even malform due to a particular belief system. Things like a pervasive feeling of lack in life can manifest in physical form in the way we digest food. You’ve probably heard things like this a million times and thought to yourself, “Ha - yeah right!” Because it’s a heady concept and not something you could test with a beaker tube. The power of the mind over the body comes off as super new-agey and therefore we all to often put it in the bullshit pile. But the affects of how we hold onto emotional pain are quite severe, they manifest in disease and damage your gene code for future generations– so in my opinion, why not lean in favor of, “do something about it, regardless” because there’s nothing to lose, everything to gain. OR, even just decide to stay open to what I am saying purely for the sake of practicing openness.

In broad strokes, I will go through some of the connections between emotions we hold onto and where they tend to get stuck in our body- plus a few tools to do something about it. I will post my references at the end of this post but in truth – if you suffer from chronic pain, go to a doctor! And if you suffer severe emotional pain, see a therapist! This is not a substitute for either of those.And just so you know what you’re getting into – this is an episode all about the body, with a whole lot of yoga to soothe particular negative emotions that get stuck in our body. If that doesn’t appeal to you – you probably won’t like this episode– but I will bet you get something valuable out of it regardless. This is about the body, so I’m going to talk about things like pooping – so if that’s not what you want to listen to right now, then maybe save this for another time. If you’re worried I’m going to go into anything too hippy dippy, I hear you- it’s a turn off. It’s almost like you think you like the person you’re talking to and suddenly you hear something they say and think, “Ah okay – I understand, you’re a crazy person.” So I’m going to try my best to keep this as grounded and relatable as possible. Again – I’ll ask you to please, receive what I say without judging it on the way you. Allow yourself that experience: to listen with total non-judgment and openness. A simple resting state of, “Maybe that IS true.” There are three parts – the what, the why and the how.

Part 1: The What

Just like a physical injury, when you go through a particularly painful emotional experience, it will manifest in the way you think, feel, act and therefore live. The effects it will manifest in your body in more ways than simply the chemicals released in your brain. Because we’re complex and every system is interconnected: there’s a whole chain reaction that occurs one something becomes a pattern. Balance is thrown off. Just look at the affect of driving with your right foot. We have a race of humans with a right leg slightly shorter than our left. The tendons gets tighter.

So just like different people deal with stress differently – some explode, some eat it, some run it off, the ways we manage toxic emotions is different depending on who we are and the tools we are dealt genetically. Depending on your sensitivities and also your ability to manage extremely overwhelming types of pain – sometimes you don’t release the emotion, and instead we clench. We bury. We control. We manage them in unconscious ways – and this is when we “hold” onto them, deep inside ourselves. It is when we do not process and vent these toxic emotions that they manifest an imbalance in physical form in our bodies. We take out the emotion on our body instead of moving through it consciously.

For example, if you have a delicate stomach to begin with and you have problems processing stress – and therefore you internalize stress, you might develop a stomach ulcer. Or, if you have intense anxiety and do not process the emotion, the imbalance in your chemicals causes an allergic reaction: your immune system might react with an itchy rash or you might break out with zits. The connections between toxic emotions are common and quite logical. An unmanaged toxic emotion creates chronic pain when it becomes a pattern enacted over a length of time. That’s when these imbalances become too much to simply continue treating the symptoms. When your chemicals are upset, weird shit happens! Which is why it’s so vital to your long-term health and the DNA you pass along to your kids – to effort to live with balance, to soothe your body and help yourself to recognize and pass the pain instead of holding onto it. Because we inherit our stuffed emotional problems from the generations before us in the form of gene-degradation. There is such a thing as culturally inherited trauma.

If you don’t process pain correctly, don’t be bummed at yourself - it’s likely because you were incapable of dealing with it a different way – it’s come about as a self-defense mechanism. All of these come in to play when you need to cope: usually at an age when we are overwhelmed and the feelings are simply too much. This is not about blame, it’s about changing yourself now, today, moving forward: recognizing where you want to focus healing yourself, changing your ways, and working on it deliberately with small actions. Change is much easier from a grown-up, stable place in your life – the you who is capable, now, today.

Emotional pain needs to be confronted and processed so that it can be released. When you harbor emotions like resentment or fear or anger, you allow the emotion – with all its toxic chemicals, to fester inside. Where, depends on your particular make up as a person – but it will create an upset to your system, one that arises from chronic imbalance. Resistance creates tension. The pain grows a point of focus.

When you learn to manage pain, growing up, if you’re not totally skilled in the form of self-expression – or perhaps you are more vulnerable to your environment, you will create coping mechanisms. These will form a kind of muscle-memory inside your body, like curling into a ball to protect yourself, but in much more varied and specific places.

Part 2: The Why

If you were to connect the dots between emotional causes and their effects in the body, they would make a whole lot of sense. It’s almost like drawing a map of the flow of your chemicals throughout the day, and how they are altered by specific stressful emotions and life-patterns. Patterns, like managing emotions – are unconscious. They are our ‘story’ and therefore they define us, but because they are habits, they can also trap us. Depending on what you choose to tell yourself – you will be strong or weak: a victim to your troubles or powerfully conquering them. It all comes down to a choice and an awareness of having a choice, in the first place.

I know it’s hard to believe that you could cause the physical pains you suffer from, because that means you have a hand in something you’re helpless against. How can you stop something you can’t see you’re doing? If you were told by your doctor that you could change the way you feel your pain, you’d likely say, “Go to hell, jerk. I came here to get some help.” Because you’re IN your body and can’t separate from it, when it’s hurting or revolting you feel you are a victim. This is all about taking small deliberate steps to self-examine and mentally separate as much as possible for the sake of the potential benefits. To look deeper and question the beliefs you hold to be true and slow down your patterns so that you can apply a new approach. It’s rare that we even question our own belief systems or try to take apart our patterns – because they’re cemented into our identity. Yet the benefits are immense: everything in the rest of your life changes if you start a new habit, today.

So let’s talk specifically about some of the common spots we hold pain in the body. Anger when kept inside, boils and infects the body. Resentment festers, guilt leads to pain. Anxiety creates imbalance and lack of focus, and comes from a lack of trust or faith in the flow of life. Here are some typical manifestations of pain:

Stomach issues like indigestion usually relate to dread and fear of the new. Commonly, if you have stomach problems you internalize anxiety, fear, or you experienced a trauma.

Back pain is usually a sign of unvented anger.Depending on how bad the pain is, your anger might be very old and intense because it’s the anger of a child. Does that sound weird to you? Picture a cartoon character that’s super mad and turning red. They don’t look bendy and relaxed, they look completely tensed. You could think of back ache as a pinched nerve caused by rigidness in life: tension affects the various ligaments and tendons – and then eventually, the nerves.If your childhood involved managing a lot of unmet needs – like maybe you were angry and never voiced the anger, this storing of emotion might manifest as back pain. So if you have excruciating back pain that has caused an avalanche of other effects – there’s a likelihood you hold a lot of anger.

Skin problems like rashes and acne are often tied to feelings of threat. Internalized stress and panic can cause an allergic reaction. Like your body starts fighting itself. I get allergic reactions to stress and anxiety that makes me itchy all over. It’s nutso man.

Constipation is related to a holding onto things. It’s usually paired with a feeling of lack in ones life –that it’s never going to be enough. So if you are often constipated, analyze the rest of your habits in life. Are you a person who feels like you don’t have “enough” money or love or success? That you’re never satisfied?

Fat (I know this is a weird one) but holding onto fat, particularly in the belly, is tied to feelings that we didn’t get enough emotional nourishment. It’s tied to emotional neediness and sensitivity, like you didn’t get enough love growing up.

Spinal misalignments have so many specific connections to emotional health that it’stoo big to attack in a blog like this. But, in short - if your spine is misaligned it can irritate a ton of different things in your nervous system that affect your mental outlook.

Coincidentally, the sacrum (the bones you sit on) is where many of us hold onto the oldest of anger: emotions to do with loss of power in our youth; old stubborn anger. In yoga, sometimes people are hit with intense emotions and tears while doing intense hip openers: it holds a lot of old weird stuff – this body of ours.

If any or all of these bodily connections DON’T ring true for you and you’re feeling that urge to shut off because this just sounds way too extreme and hippy to you – I feel you! It’s totally that kind of topic – especially if you’re not used to thinking of the power of your mind in this way. Instead of completely dismissing all of this, I would ask you to instead think about what does seem logical to you based on your particular ailments. Ask yourself, “What could be a pattern in my emotions that could be creating (xyz physical problem)?” Trust your instincts – if you have a theory, place some value in it. If not just for the sake of the next section where we do some yoga!

Part 3: The TOOLS

TOOL 1. Nego Pattern Reflection

Start by examining where you could use some help. Why? Because it could be a key to altering something about your physical health that you didn’t think was changeable.

Grab your journal! This is best done with a pen and paper… You’re going to reflect on yourself and your negative habits. So ruminate on the below:

• What are the negative coping habits that you currently have? For example, how do you manage stress? How do you deal with conflicts in your relationships? How do you avoid any hard work in your relationships? How do you take short cuts to manage things like pain?

Identify areas that you want to begin to soothe, or balance. So if it’s something like anger, anxiety, soothing tactics, resistance to accept - what is your go-to knee jerk reaction to something hurting you in life?

This is not about intent – it’s about a habit, or well trained in route that you tend to take. So think of it like a form of autopilot that takes over.

Once you identify something – acknowledge to yourself, either aloud or internally that you are willing to release this habit of being. You want to let go of the emotional go-to pattern that has created a condition in your body. Like, “I want to stop shutting off with unhealthy mechanisms."

Great! This is a great starting point to create some specific new soothing habits!

TOOL 2. Power of Intention – Personal Mantra

This is just a simple “personal mantra” tool to use in the moment you’re experiencing a negative or toxic emotion that you don’t want to have in your body. I invite you to begin a practice of just speaking aloud the intention to let something go. Use it as a way to help yourself cease criticism in your life. Cease any emotional thoughts you have coming from fear and anger as they are what create toxins in your body. So use this tool as a way to help yourself begin to navigate out of them when you can feel an old habit taking over.

PERSONAL MANTRA: “I choose to let go of this anger.” (or fill in the blank emotion)

That act – in itself – has a lot of power to change the flow of your thoughts and how you identify your true self in the midst of emotional turmoil. Repeat the phrase to yourself as a casual meditation while breathing deeply. Say it over and over, slowly and calmly, with deliberate focus. No matter what it is or how serious an emotion it is, sometimes this is the key to finding a way out of it. I use it sometimes when I’m mad and I know I don’t want to be – just repeating my own truth, despite the chemical state of anger.

TOOL 3. Yoga for Emotional Processing

The next series of tools are for the specific toxic emotions including anxiety, depression, emotional lethargy, anger, and stress.

Yoga balances the mind and the body because the relationship between the two is reflexive. You don’t want your mind running away with you or creating physical ailments, so you can use the body as a way to calm the mind and keep yourself holistically balanced. With the various yoga poses, you are getting fresh blood flow to the various parts of your body and also remedying the unhealthy habits of everyday life – bad posture, cramps in the various muscles, toxins we take in. Think of it like you’re cleaning out your insides with breath, stretching, and calming chemicals. Returning to a place of peace and tranquility.

The yoga sutras were crafted somewhere between 300 BC and 300 AD and they are based on the principle that the mind and body are one being but are put in constant turmoil because of everyday life. Dealing with life stresses the body, bringing about things like depression, anxiety, rage, and restlessness. So yoga is to bring calm and balance by moving in specific ways: each pose ties to a unique benefit. We usually think of it as JUST meditation or JUST stretching but there’s a whole lot more at play depending on the part of your body you’re moving. You’re affecting the nerves, glands, tissues, and cells in the respiratory, excretory, hormonal, digestive, nervous, reproductive systems of the body. By holding poses and curbing your mental chatter, you’re helping to create equilibrium between the intellect and the soul. It’s a practice that allows you to create discipline in your emotional self – so it helps you MANUALLY control emotional impulses. That’s why it’s so helpful for PTSD and those who suffer from addiction— you take power away from your brain, and manually soothe your emotions by creating mental detachment.

Now for the caveats section:

• Keep in mind that these poses are helpful for managing the effects of the problems at play by targeting specific parts of your body but they are not a substitute for modern medicine. Think of this as a daily maintenance practice to be done in addition to necessary things like taking your meds and going to the doctor.

• If you are not COMFORTABLE in these poses then don’t do them. Sometimes it takes a while to work up enough flexibility – so take your time, keep practicing and don’t force it.

• If the descriptions don’t translate perfectly, please Google the poses so you can see what they look like and how to do them.

• Take all of my suggestions in based on what feels right and safe for you – I am not a doctor, I just read a lot and do a lot of yoga. And this works for me! For reals it does, I use these on a regular basis. So hopefully there’s something in here that will work for you, too.

• All of these poses must be practiced with sincerity. In other words, commit to doing them for real and use the utmost patience – they can’t be hurried through.

• If you’re super pregnant don’t do these. Also, don’t do these if you have super high blood pressure. In short, please don’t hurt yourself.

• Forgive the sweaty amateur photo shoot...it was hot as balls in my apartment.

HOW TO USE THESE

Treat these as focused meditational practices for venting emotions. As you do a pose, first repeat your personal mantra – make it your “dedication” or “intention” for the mini-yoga practice. I suggest making one or two of these into a daily mini-meditative yoga processing sesh targeted at releasing one particular negative emotion. During each pose, take slow, even breaths in and out of the nose. You don’t want to do any pose that causes you to hold your breath. That’s the opposite of yoga. So, back off a bit if you find it’s hard to breathe. Try to hold each pose for at least 30 breaths and ideally 60 breaths. It’s best to do these barefoot and in comfortable clothing, but I do a lot of these at work so I think you could too if you are in need of immediate soothing.

FOR ANXIETY

If you suffer from anxiety, poses that circulate blood and also calm your heart are very helpful. That’s why the poses I am recommending are folding poses - they squeeze your organs to your blood circulating through your body and relax the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight stress system.

• Standing Forward Fold

This pose soothes and calms the body and brain. It’s also good for depression. Stand straight with your feet hips-distance apart. (If you have problems balancing, stand with your back against a wall – completely flat.) Make sure your weight is even in your two feet. Now fold forwards and let your torso completely relax, take slow, even deep breaths through your nose.

If you’re flexible, you can also hold onto your elbows. If this hurts a lot – then bend your knees slightly. If that hurts still, stack some books in front of you so that you can brace your weight on them while you fold.

• Sitting Forward Fold

Because your heart is horizontal and not above you, the heart is relieved a lot of work pumping blood upwards, so blood circulates more easily. It’s great for calming. Sit on your butt and extend your feet straight out in front of you, keep your toes pointed upwards. Lift your arms up and keep your back as straight as possible, now fold forward over your legs and elongate your torso. If you can, touch your toes, otherwise rest your hands next to your knees or shins. If your hamstrings are tight, bend your knees a bit.

• Extreme Chest Stretch

Stand up very straight with upright posture. Put your hands together behind your shoulders like a reverse prayer position– or simply hold onto opposite elbows behind your back. It’s going to puff your chest out and feel like an intense stretch on your shoulders. You might want to ease into this one if it feels super awkward, just start with the holding opposite elbows.

• Restorative Inversion

If you are super stiff or just totally exhausted, then it’s always better to do a restorative yoga pose. Grab a towel or a blanket and roll it up into a sausage shape. Now, lie on your back on the ground - completely flat, and place that rolled towel just below your shoulder blades so it arches up your heart above the rest of your body. Ideally, it should be about 6 inches in width. Keep your arms splayed out to the sides of your body.

FOR DEPRESSION

If you’re chemically depressed you want to do poses that get more blood to your head, so back bends and inversions are great poses to practice. (Inversions are poses where your heart is lower than your head.) Back bends give you anincreased ability to handle stress – they relieve tension and soothe nervous exhaustion.

• Mountain pose

This is basic but effective. You want to stand up tall with your feet hips distance apart, head pointed straight ahead, in bare feet. You can either have your arms alert at your sides with your palms facing outwards, or your arms stretched straight up with palms facing, or arms stretched straight up with your fingers locked, palms turned inside out.

• Downward dog

This one is my fave! It’s a go-to for pretty much any kind of negative emotion. It slows the heart rate so it’s great for calming the brain and also coincidentally – great for relieving cramps. AND it gives you renewed energy because it’s getting blood to your brain.

To do downward dog, get into a tabletop position (hands and knees). If you have tight hamstrings, you can put your fingertips at the base of a wall to help support yourself. Place your hands a little wider than your shoulders, your feet hips distance, then slowly lift your knees off the ground and straighten your legs. If it’s too tight on your hamstrings, then keep your knees bent a bit. The goal is to press your chest toward the ground while keeping your shoulder blades sucked onto your back. Press into your hands and heels, and picture yourself pulling your hands toward one another.

• Bridge pose

This is a back bend so it gives you extra chemical soothing support! Start on your back and bend your knees so your feet are directly below them. Keep your arms straight down your sides and then bend your forearms so your fingers are pointed straight upward. You’ll be making robot arms – fingers together, elbows pushing down into the ground. Now slowly curl your tailbone off the ground and scoop your lower body off the ground – try to do this one vertebrae at a time. You want to keep your butt relaxed and your knees lightly pushing toward one another. Don’t push too hard or put too much stress on your spine, and make sure you are keeping your core engaged. So the only things touching the ground are your shoulders, head neck and elbows. Keep looking up and make sure you have length in your neck to breathe. Come down the same way: one vertebrae at a time.

• Restorative Bridge Pose

If that’s too hard for you or you’re super tired, you can also do a restorative bridge pose – basically make a long row of couch cushions under your body, all the way up to the base of your shoulder blades. You’re going to then lay across them so your body is elevated about a 6 inches to 1 foot off the ground, except your shoulders, head and neck. Put your arms, elbows bent, splayed out beside your upper torso.

• Restorative Inversion with Legs Up the Wall

This is another relaxing one where you lie flat on the ground and scoot your butt so it’s against the base of the wall, then straighten your legs up the wall so they are straight up and down. Keep them together and stretch your arms out to the sides with palms facing up. You can stay here for 3-5 minutes.

FOR FATIGUE AND LETHARGY

If you’re emotionally exhausted or sluggish, it’s helpful to do things to uplift your energy levels without stressing the body further. Your nervous system is already taxed so your job is to elevate and restore. That’s why twisting poses are great: they move a lot of blood from your organs and get things flowing. They’re cleansing. Refreshing.

• Torso leg stretch (or Marychyasina)

Sit on the ground with both legs out straight in front of you and together. First bend your right knee upright and twist your upper body towards it. Now extend your left arm straight and allow the upper part of your left arm to rest on the outside of your right knee. Keep your back up straight and twist toward the right. You can use your right arm to brace yourself on the ground and keep your back straight. You can use light pressure against your bent knee to lightly twist deeper. Don’t forget to switch sides.

*If that’s too deep a twist for you, just hold onto the bent knee and use your arms to help yourself twist.

• Reclining Twist (Or what I like to call, Twisted Action figure pose)

Lie flat on the ground, curl your knees into your chest and let them fall to the right, then look to the left. Let your arms extend out on both sides. Switch by flopping your legs to the other side and look the opposite direction.

• Plough pose

This is for more advanced yogis. It increases confidence, clarity, balance and energy. This is one of the harder poses so don’t attempt this unless you’re somewhat flexible. Also watch a YouTube how-to first.

Start by lying down flat, arms by your sides, then roll your legs up and over your head, touching your toes on the floor behind you, keeping your legs totally straight. It will look like an upside down sitting forward fold. Don’t look side to side – keep your neck and head straight. You can use your hands to brace yourself on your lower back, or keep them pressed to the ground. Come down one vertebrae at a time as slowly as possible.

FOR ANGER

If you’re short-tempered, it’s helpful to practice heart openers. These help you regain emotional stability and also center you from turbulent emotions. If you’re prone to mood-swings, start a daily heart opener practice.

• Seated cross-legged position

Super basic but very helpful for increased balance, calm and grounding. This pose gets you back to an internal and meditative state. The Sanskrit word translates to ‘wellbeingness’. Sit on the ground with your legs crossed like you did in kindergarten. If it hurts your hips, sit up on a small cushion. Or even a short stack of big books. Rest your hands on your knees, keep your back straight and keep your head facing forward.

• Forward Folding Cross-legged position

This one is a hip-opener, so it’s great for anger and also good if you want to process and vent old anger. Same set-up: Sit cross-legged and now lift your arms straight up, keep your back straight and fold forward over your legs. Breathe slowly and deeply. Take 30 breaths then switch the cross of your legs.

• Downward-facing cross-legged pose (or what I like to call, the sleepy kindergartener)

Get a table or a small bench that’s the height of your breastbone and place a pillow on top of it. Sit cross-legged right in front of it - atop a pillow, if it’s more comfy. Fold your torso over the bench and lay your head on top of the pillow. It should look almost like you fell asleep while sitting at the breakfast table – but in this case, you are seated on the ground in a cross-legged position. Extend your arms forward on the table and cross them right above the top of your head. Align your body frontally, like don’t shift your head to one side. Keep the back elongated, and if it’s not comfortable roll a small blanket and place it under your chest for more support. Breathe deeply here for 2 minutes.

• Simple chest opener

If you’re at work this is a great one.Stand in mountain pose, straight up and down, arms at your sides, palms out. Now make a shape like you’re being beamed up by an alien ship from the center of your breastbone. Slowly begin to arch your chest upward toward the sky. Keep your lower abs engaged and take slow, deep and measured breaths. Allow your head to curl backwards but don’t relax your neck too much – you want to breathe fully.

• Camel pose

Get a blanket or something soft and throw it on the ground. Kneel on top of it with your legs hips distance apart. If you can, curl your toes under to help stabilize your weight. You’re going to make the same shape with your upper body. Start with your back completely straight then begin to arc your chest upward and curl your head back, keeping your lower abs engaged. You can use your hands on the backs of your hips to help support yourself and arch higher. Keep your core engaged so you’re putting too much pressure on your lower back. Breath slow, even breaths and come out of it the same way you went into it – curl up your head, last.

FOR STRESS

Calming, relaxing poses are great for stress relief. Slow deep breaths are best for balancing your brain hemispheres – so breathing exercises alone will work if you can’t do a yoga pose.

• Head on knee pose

Sit on the floor with both legs out straight, then bend the right foot in so your bottom of your foot touches the inside of your left thigh. Then face your left leg so your whole torso is centered over your left leg, stretch up with both arms, and fold over your extended leg. Just allow your back to stay as long as possible, so if you can’t touch your toes, work up to it. Start with hands by your shin or knee. If you need to, bend your knee a tiny bit. Focus on keeping both sides of your torso equally stretched over your leg. Slowly come up and switch sides. Eventually when you get enough flexibility, the goal would be to rest your nose or chin right above your knee, but only if you can keep your leg straight.

• Corpse pose

This is great for easing tension and calming the mind. It’s last on my list because you always do this pose last – it’s a nervous system shut down.

Sit in a seated position and roll yourself down onto your back, vertebrae by vertebrae, until your back is completely flat. Now allow your arms to splay out, your legs to relax out, completely even on both sides of your body. Make sure there’s no uneven pressure under your body and nothing touching your body. Close your eyes and let everything in your face relax. Relax your tongue, your mouth, and breathe normally. Relax your eye muscles, your forehead, your fingers. If you need to, drape something over your eyes so you can keep them closed. Stay here for five minutes.

• Restorative Corpse pose

This is the same thing before you lay down, place a pillow underneath your shoulders, head and neck, elevating everything from the base of your shoulder blades up so it’s about 4 inches off the ground. You can also place a rolled blanket under your knees. To come out of it, roll to your right side and push yourself up to a seat.

Those are my picks for soothing these particular nego-patterns! I hope you try them and even try more than these. I will bet they work for you.

In closing…

Our self-understanding is cultural – our understanding of limits is also cultural. We rarely question our own beliefs because we’ve grown so used to them. What I hope you will be inspired to do is question your beliefs about yourself and challenge the ways “you are and will always be.” When we decide who we are – and decide it’s set it stone, it’s usually something we’ve taken on as a definition based on the ideas of others. So truly, our beliefs are always changeable. They can be challenged and new practices can be adopted – it comes down to looking at what is still serving you and what is no longer helpful, and making a change in your behavior. If you want to believe otherwise and you can’t force yourself to think outside of your ways, just begin by questioning yourself: really examine and challenge the truth behind those sticking points. You can be changed at any age and create a different life for yourself. Night and day can happen in a single day.

The past is the past. It created your life up to this moment. How you choose to look at today and the present moment: that changes your tomorrow and everything you live from this point forth. So, for your own happiness and well being, allow yourself a new choice, today. Even the smallest change in your perspective will make a dramatic difference in the quality of the rest of your life: it alters the pattern. And with repetition, a daily practice - once you actually see proof of the change it has made in your life, then you build momentum. It just takes seeing that first sign of change: feeling that balance, that happiness that comes from soothing and processing toxic emotions. Give it a try. I believe that, just like me, you’ll never go back! You’ll grow to trust the process and invest the more in more in the value of balancing your mind and body. It’s the best toolset ever because there’s nothing to solve about it. It’s so simple and pure – and it makes you KNOW innately that you can and will be okay – you will take care of yourself- no matter what happens. You will be there to care for yourself.

I hope this was helpful and inspiring in some way… Smile lovely friends!!!