We’re taught that emotions come from one place in the body kinda in the same way that we’re taught a heart is actually heart-shaped instead of this oval muscular organ. Emotions supposedly “come from the heart” and yet that’s not where we actually feel them most of the time. We feel heartbroken when we have given deep love and affection which is unconditional and completely geared towards the support and nurturance of the other and this goes un- or negatively valued. But we feel it in a different place in our body when our feelings of love include intimacy, sexuality, money, and issues around our own identity. We feel it in a completely different place when something derails our life in significant ways and we even have phrases around this like feeling “punched in the stomach”, “kicked in the gut” or “sick to my core”.
Emotions don’t reside in one place, our body and our emotions are integrally linked and so the body responds symbolically and functionally depending on what emotion is in play at any given moment. Becoming aware of where an emotion comes from, experiencing it, being with it, listening to what it has to say can lead to an immense font of wisdom. However, most times we find emotions irritating and an interruption that gets in the way of what we want to be doing. It’s only after the fact that we check in to see what emotion we might be having or had during any given activity and then try to figure out why it wasn’t what we thought it might be. As if we’re reporters doing an exit poll on our emotions as they leave the building!
The less we try to ignore our emotions, medicate them, eat/drink/smoke them into oblivion, the more we will come to know ourselves and see how our life may or may not match who we truly are.