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Take a moment to think of how many times in your life you’ve offered up the “easy” answer of “I’m fine” to the question of “How are you doing?” You said, “I’m fine” because you felt it uncomfortable to expand on how you’re truly feeling. Maybe you thought that your emotions weren’t really the topic for conversation. But, what if it was actually an expression of your lack of desire to address your emotions? This is your meter of emotional health and well-being exposing a lack mentality.
Recently, a client approached me with a question: “How do I get out of my own head?” We’d been talking for two weeks about all of the ways she could begin implementing impactful change into her life. But she still couldn’t move past the questions of “what if?” or “how?” I asked her how she was feeling emotionally about all of this, and she said, “I’m fine.” I sat there thinking for a moment, transcribing notes. I asked her, “How are you really feeling about all of this?” She asked me what I meant; I went on to explain that if you’re truly feeling “in your own head,” you’re likely frustrated, scared, annoyed, etc. So, I asked her again how she was feeling. In the moment, I realized how often we disregard our own emotions for the sake of feeling “fine,” because of the discomfort of our emotions.
Emotional Health & Well-being
What does it mean to be emotionally healthy? People who sustain a healthy relationship with their emotions maintain that relationship because they can recognize and handle both positive and “negative” emotions. I use quotes around negative because I believe no emotion is negative. Everything we feel serves its purpose in our life. No matter how difficult an emotion may feel, it’s serving to make us stronger, more emotionally free people. So, what happens to you and your life when you put your emotional health and well-being first and stop saying “I’m fine,” every time someone asks how you’re doing? When you release the pressure of needing to be fine all the time and allow your emotions to exist on an even playing field with one another, you’re embracing the depths of what it means to be human.
However, emotional health and well-being aren’t just about experiencing the high highs and the low lows. It’s about maintaining an alignment with your emotions and how they’re affecting you–an effective awareness that allows you to understand not just what you’re feeling, but why you’re feeling it. So, when in your life do you find yourself pushing down your emotions, or re-writing a feeling for the sake of feeling comfortable? When was the last time you said “I’m fine”? When you didn’t actually mean it? And what emotion(s) was sitting at the surface? One of the signs of good emotional health, first and foremost, is emotional awareness. Once you’re able to be okay with being comfortable in potentially uncomfortable emotions, you’ve crossed the most difficult barrier. Not addressing the “I’m fine” is what will most negatively affect your mental health.
3 Signs of Strong Emotional Health
1. Aligning with Your Sense of Purpose: Your emotions most often align with whatever it is you’re being called to do in life. Your passions strongly influence your emotional health and whether or not you feel you’re fulfilling your sense of purpose. So many of us struggle to find our personal sense of identity and purpose in a world where opportunity can feel both great and lacking. Build your emotional strength not necessarily with what you can do, but the antithesis to that: DON’T deny the things you love to do. Don’t push down your desires to pursue a unique opportunity or to put yourself out there or do the thing most people aren’t doing. This is a topic we explore at great length in our 1:1 Coaching Suite; you can book a free 30-minute discovery call to learn more about the coaching program and what you can gain from the time together. More on the topic of finding your purpose: Accelerate Your Success with Grit, Worthy of Success, and How to Gain a Clear Focus on the Future (podcast Ep.11).
2. Therapeutic Techniques for Overwhelming Emotions: There is no way to avoid overwhelm. We’re all human, and at some point, we’re going to reach moments when our emotions overwhelm us. We’ll go through periods of loss, grief, resentment, and anger; but, it’s how we allow those emotions to exist in our present moment that serves our emotional health and well-being. Overwhelm is a state of mind. However, with power over the mind and as someone in control over their emotions, you may realize you are natural to those emotions you previously expressed as “fine.” You learn therapeutic techniques for overwhelm, such as meditation, journaling, EFT, and manifesting that allow you to express those emotions in healthy ways that address their role in your current life.
3. Unapologetically Be Yourself: There is little cause in this world for someone to truly step back from who they are and change their ways. We are who are at our core. It takes great emotional trauma for someone to change the trajectory of their life. It also takes great confidence for someone to be exactly who they are, and serve their purpose on this earth. A strong facet to emotional health is one who is unwavering to who they are, what they believe in, and their essence for life. True alignment with self is tied to others’ journeys of alignment with self, therefore their journey to finding true emotional freedom.
When our emotions are in concert rather than conflict with one another, we reach true emotional freedom and alignment. Your emotional health and well-being, connected to your mental health is acknowledging all that’s going on and finding its purpose in your journey. Addressing all that comes up and understanding what role an emotion serves pushes you toward the purpose of your higher self.
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