8 Life-Changing Habits That Create Emotional Freedom

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.?~ Joseph Campbell

The Gift

You were born an incredibly resilient, resourceful, and adaptable organism. Your capacity to thrive and grow is profound. This is not self-help rhetoric — this is based on millions of years of evolutionary success for our species in a broad range of environments.

You do not need self-improvement — you have what you need.?However, human beings may be the only creature on the planet that can get in the way of our own growth and wellbeing even when we have everything we need. You need to allow your natural gift to flourish. Again, not rhetoric — based on thousands of years of lasting wisdom and thousands of scientific studies. The less we try to be who we think we are supposed to be, and the more we listen carefully to who we are, the healthier and happier we will be.

The Trap

Many of us are caught in the belief that we are supposed to feel a certain way. Believing that there are feelings we should and shouldn’t have has some major consequences. We spend energy fighting or avoiding what we are feeling. We chase circumstances in the hopes that they will lead to the feelings we want. We miss out on wisdom that comes from uncomfortable feelings. And, in an effort to suppress unpleasant feelings, we dull our sensitivity to compassion, curiosity, love, joy, and wonder.

I want to be clear, we are not limited by our emotions, but rather by our beliefs about them and our responses to them. It is easy to understand how we got here. Discomfort was originally a signal to act on our survival needs. As we developed abstract thought, uncomfortable feelings became attached to imagined threats rather than real ones.

Over time, we started treating the discomfort itself as the problem. The result is that many of us were taught in direct and subtle ways that we are not supposed to feel certain things. We were told not to cry, or be angry. We were encouraged to be fearless and say we are “fine” when asked how we are doing.

We grow up believing that there is a small range of acceptable feelings, and that our goal is to create a life that eliminates the rest. So, off we go, working hard to pursue happiness at any cost. Most of us never stop to question the truth of the story that drives us until we are sick from stress, utterly exhausted, retired, or on our deathbed.

The Key

No matter what you do with your life, if you have a healthy nervous system, you are going to feel a wide range of emotions. This is a reality of being human. Rather than trying to feel a certain way, we can learn to feel anything fully and respond wisely.?This is emotional freedom.

Emotional freedom is not the absence of anxiety, anger, fear, stress, frustration, or any other uncomfortable feeling. Emotional freedom is the ability to choose a purposeful response in the presence of any feeling. It is an amazing source of peace and confidence when you trust that you can work skillfully, gracefully, and yes, even joyfully with whatever shows up. Emotional freedom is the key to leveraging your natural capacity to thrive in any circumstance.

There are eight habits that create emotional freedom.

Focusing on Practice

The way that you use your attention and energy is your practice. Your brain is constantly rewiring itself based on what you pay attention to and the actions you take. This is called?behavior-dependent neuroplasticity. Your brain catalogs what you do repeatedly and organizes itself to become more skilled at it. As far as your brain is concerned, you are always practicing something.

Life is constantly changing — triumphs, setbacks, gains, and losses. Circum stances do not build the skill of emotional freedom — only practice can do that. Focusing on your practice gives your life stability that external circumstances cannot. You can get in the habit of asking “What am I practicing right now? Is it something I would like to get better at?”

Using Your BodyMind

The separation between body and mind is conceptual, not real. At least, no one has been able to identify where one stops and the other begins. We tend to be obsessed with our ability to think, but it is only one way of processing information. Evolutionarily, we were sensing and feeling creatures long before we had the ability to think. When we pay attention to how we are feeling, moving, and thinking, we take advantage of all the wisdom we have at our disposal.

One way to practice this is to sense your heartbeat by sitting quietly without taking your pulse. This ability to sense what is going on inside you is known as interoception. Studies showed that?investors who practiced this daily had better financial outcomes.

Increasing Reset Frequency

We need periods of both challenge and restoration to thrive. Athletes grow stronger by training hard and then resting in between workouts. What many of us don’t realize is that it is during downtime that muscles actually grow. The same is true for thinking and feeling —?periods of relaxation are required for information to be synthesized into new insights.

Stress is not bad — it is necessary for life. Your body is built to move quickly between challenge mode and growth mode. But?we tend to keep ourselves in challenge mode by spinning in our heads?throughout the day. Rather than wait until the end of the day or the weekend to unwind, you can practice resetting much more frequently. You can rebalance your nervous system for a minute or so several times throughout the day — stand up, stretch, breathe gently, step outside, be grateful for someone or something in your life, or just sit quietly and do nothing.

Opening and Breathing

There is a bundle of nerves that run between your brain and your body known as the Vagus nerves.?These carry information in both directions about threat and safety.?When we sense danger, we tend to contract our bodies and breathe more rapidly and shallowly in preparation for a burst of activity. The opposite is true as well. When you close your body and breathe more rapidly and shallowly, you are more likely to sense a threat and be reactive.

You can practice opening your posture throughout the day — standing or sitting upright, lifting the chest slightly and allowing your shoulders and face to relax. You can practice breathing gently and slowly through your nose into a relaxed abdomen.?Both of these practices?send messages of safety to your brain and?effect how you perceive yourself and the world

Just Feeling It

No matter how successful, beautiful, wealthy or famous you are, as a human, you are going to experience a range of feelings. Some pleasant and some not. Fighting what we feel is an unnecessary battle. In fact,?trying to feel better all the time can make us less happy.

Simply bringing awareness and acceptance to whatever you are feeling is a very powerful practice for social-emotional fitness.?Mindfulness practice is one of the most effective ways to build this habit.?Sitting quietly with whatever arises — restlessness, boredom, anxiety, fear, sadness… — allows you to see that you are okay in the presence of uncomfortable emotions and that they always pass.

Connecting With Kindness

Compassion is a felt understanding that we all share one source — whatever that is — and everyone struggles — no matter how well put together they appear. Kindness is the action that is born out of compassion. Practicing small acts of kindness throughout the day is?a powerful health intervention?that builds social connection and sense of belonging.

Self-compassion is also powerful.?You are human. You are going to make mistakes. When you do, you can still treat yourself with kindness and respect. You can practice smiling in the mirror as if you were greeting a friend and, when things go sideway, you can speak to yourself the way to would to a good friend who is having a tough day.

Trusting Your Wisdom

Anxiety is often spurred on by believing we know what the future holds and that we are not up to it. The reality is that none of us knows what the future is going to bring, and you have a lifetime of evidence that says you are up to it. Trusting in your ability to cope with whatever shows up is?a powerful buffer against stress and anxiety.

When you are caught in a loop about an imagined negative future, you can remind yourself that you do not know what the future is going to bring. No one does. And you can remind yourself that you are here right now because you have dealt with everything that has ever shown up in your life.

Doing What Matters

Many people feel a lot of pressure to find their life’s purpose. That is not what this is about. It is about being purposeful.?Sensing the value behind your actions is a source of wellbeing.?Often, underneath our rationalizations for our behavior is a feeling that we are avoiding or seeking. Being aware of this can be very helpful.

You can spend a few minutes from time to time writing about what really matters to you. There can be many things. You can practice bringing those things to mind at the beginning and end of the day. And you can remind yourself that you always have the choice of acting on these things whether you feel like it in the moment or not. This is?one of the greatest sources of psychological freedom available to us.

Dave helps driven, anxious, perfectionists to find joy in the life they are working so hard to create. You can reach him at [email protected]