28. When Your Body Store Emotions: Where is Your Energy Focused?

If you have ever wondered why you experience a feeling of being stuck, lack of discernment on what is actually yours?

Your body might be storing emotions. Having someone to truly listen, just listen,  can be a true gift. Many of the answers are inside of us. The need to push or have other people validate our desires can pull us out of our own destiny. Trying to control other people can also do this. I want my children to find their own soul's desires. This means being the example myself first. This also means I allow God to guide my decisions.

The book The Mountain Is You, by Brianna Wiest talks about clearing your water ducts. I find this analogy really helpful. If things are blocked, the water can't flow. The quality is affected. 

A walk in nature or quiet still mornings are some of my suggestions to hear what your body is trying to tell you.

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Transcript

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Sarah Swift 0:15

Welcome to the Integrative Mother Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Swift, wife of twenty-eight years and mother of three teenagers. I want to have conversations about why so many mamas wearing multiple hats, working, serving others, or owning a business, especially in the beauty industry, feel like they need to choose between their work and their family, and they don't have enough quality time. We'll also uncover causes of overwhelm, lack of wellbeing, and joy. I'm here with over three decades of experience working in the beauty industry, owning several types of businesses starting in my early twenties, and sharing stories to help other mothers avoid that feeling of always missing out. I'm also here with solutions. Time is an asset that we can't get back. I can't wait to dive into these deep conversations. I hope you will join me Welcome back, beautiful mamas. Today's episode is about your body storing emotion and where your energy goes. Let's dive in. So to begin this episode, I've been learning a lot about this, especially in the last few years, and it makes a lot of sense. I've used a lot of holistic modalities over the years for myself and for my immediate family members, and it is really fascinating everything that is available to us and what we actually have control over and what we don't have control over. And as my mind has expanded to new modalities and ideas, it's interesting the things that have come up and the things that I actually discern so much differently now. And it's a perfect time to talk about it because we're in that season right now of discernment, and most of you as mothers have kids that are either back in school or going back to school, and there's a lot of change happening. But soon, that more grounded, structured feeling can maybe enter, especially if that's what you're craving. That would be really normal in this season. I feel this way every year, and I can't wait to get back into a structured, more routine sense of schedules, where I'm supposed to be as far as picking up and dropping off children, and activities that I'm going to watch or enjoy, as well as my businesses. What times and days I'm going to work on the back end of my businesses and do my podcast, as well as just enjoy my life, and that means my daily walks with my dog, Nora. That means time with my girlfriends, date night with my husband, and all the things. So when we go through emotions and your body is able to fully express what it needs to express, you're not necessarily storing them. So in today's episode, that's what we're really going to dive into. Have you ever noticed that there are people in your life that may have made you feel selfish for setting boundaries or created self-doubt when you felt really sure about a decision or a desire that you had? So this quote from Maya Angelou I think is so perfect. "Never explain yourself. Your friends don't need it, and your enemies won't believe you anyway." So if you are the variable and your transformation is determined on whether or not you shift, you take that next best step, you believe in yourself, and you truly believe in your desires that they're there for a reason, then your perspective is just so different. And that's how you begin to behave with it, is what your perspective is. And when you don't fully process your emotions and you store them in your body, you might start to feel tightness, you might start to feel pain. I've talked about that in previous episodes. I went through a really painful year in two thousand twenty-five. And sometimes it's something that can be taken care of in the medical world, and sometimes it actually goes deeper than that. And I think a lot of times people either just don't know that there are options available or they don't believe that they need to actually do the work. And so this is where it gets really interesting. I believe, and I heard this not that long ago, that problems don't make you stronger. I really liked that saying because I look at problems and chaos and different hardships in my life as lessons. And it's not that I want them to arrive and welcome them. It's just that I know that they are going to come and it's just part of the process. And so for example, just because you make more money, it doesn't mean that you're not in debt. People that win the lottery prove this all the time. It also is really evident in a lot of female entrepreneurs that have taken over especially the social media world in the last decade or so. Sometimes making more money means more responsibility and more overwhelm. And now it's interesting because we're hearing so many of the popular names and now we're hearing so many of those women admit that it just created more overwhelm and they were leaning too far into the masculine and not allowing their feminine energy to be in balance. So this I definitely relate to and I think it's so very interesting And when we also think about what's yours and what's not yours. So if we have the capacity to hold things and to receive things, for example, if we're talking about money, if you have the capacity to hold it and to receive it with gratitude, then you are going to be able to use that for joyous things and live in abundance. But if you're not able to receive it and hold it with gratitude, chances are it's going to leak out of your bucket. And when I think about even the healing process, healing begins with learning to process at all. So ignoring the feelings that we're feeling of overwhelm or maybe anger or even joy. In this example, can you take in the joy that's in front of you? Can you really enjoy the small moments and not just have that feeling of, I will rest when I get there. I will enjoy my day at the end of my day. That's when I deserve it," or, "I will enjoy my life when I retire someday." Well, you don't even know if you're going to be here at that point because it's not really up to you. So I think that really discerning what's happening now versus seeing situations that might happen, we really don't know. And feeling our feelings like the water duct. I've talked about this in the past, the water ducts in your body. So for example, if you are going through a really hard time and you are dealing with grief, and with grief, you're not allowing the crying to come out, and you're not allowing yourself to feel those feelings. Or maybe it's anger, and maybe you've been taught it's not ladylike to show your emotions of anger, and you are to be cheerful and respectful at all times, and it's not safe to actually acknowledge what your needs are and what your desires are, including a different idea or a different desire It's interesting because I think about whether my water ducts are clean in that analogy, and I think it ebbs and flows. But the cleanliness of your water ducts in this analogy determines the quality of your water. in the book The Mountain Is You, when the subject is talked about if the valve is shut off and it's not allowed to pass, and then the water intensely pressures and then it creates serious damage to the parts of the body that are no longer receiving the flow. This begins to have a ripple effect, and it's not a positive ripple effect on the entire body. So I think about the reset that you get when you're grieving and you allow yourself to really cry, to lean on people that you trust In general, when I'm feeling like I really need to be able to discuss something, but I'm not looking for necessarily feedback, I'm looking for the few people in my life that I can ask to listen, but just listen. And when I ask that, it's a skill not everybody has. So there are very few people I feel I can trust that they can do this well, because I think it's just human nature that when somebody's talking about something, you start to relate it to your own life. And sometimes we don't want somebody to necessarily refer to their own experience when we're going through something and we're trying to process it. And maybe when we actually feel that we have the answers within us and we want to trust our own discernment without maybe the perspective or the lens of the other person. So I think this is a skill that is very rare, but if you have somebody in your life that you can trust to do this, it is a real true gift. And I have found that I've needed this throughout my life and I have not found it in many people. So when things begin to back up Sometimes our lenses are blurred on a certain situation, or you feel yourself jumping to the worst-case scenario, as in like you're in fight or flight. And I have found that journaling really helps me. So as part of my morning reset, no judgment, I'm just starting my day, writing my thoughts out. I might be thinking about what I dreamt about the night before, what I did the day before, what my intentions are for the day ahead, and I just kind of go from there. But I'm not trying to change how I feel. So that's the discernment that I think a lot of times not really feeling your real true feelings and letting your body store those emotions in a negative way, you're not even fully aware of where your energy is going in that point. So I had a recent activity in one of my groups by a mentor of mine In this recent activity, it was interesting because we created buckets and the question was, "Is it mine?" Is it a yes? Is it a maybe? Or is it not mine? And that would be a no. And I love this exercise because sometimes we just feel it. We just know we want something. It's just a full yes So it's a full yes. Or if it's a maybe, that might mean it's an old version of me that's just comfortable or wanted that in a different season. Or maybe the version of me that was scared and young and not the woman that I am now. If something is not mine, then it needs to be a no. And this is what I've really learned, and it's so interesting because as I've really stepped into what I desire and the woman that I've become and the mother that I am and desire to be. Messing with other people's destiny by trying to control their desires is something that I think is really common. And I've noticed people trying to do this in my life, and not always with bad intent. Sometimes it's with selfish intent, but sometimes it's just that people can't even see you in a different role, or they just don't truly understand what your desires are because they're used to you in a certain role. And maybe they're someone that doesn't embrace a lot of change in their lives, or they're very rigid, they're not open to new ideas. Or maybe it's because you're not serving them in a way that they want to be served, and it's an entitlement issue. It could be a variety of things, but even with children or with your relationships, I think it's just really interesting to think about that. Because if something is someone's destiny and their desire, and you're trying to guide them in a different direction, you really have to ask yourself, "Is this yours to even be stepping into? Are you trying to control the situation? Are you allowing them to solve the problem on their own? And are they even asking you for advice?" If you're not being asked for advice, and back to my previous example of trying to find people in your life that can truly just listen without putting their two cents in, and truly listen without not only their two cents, but what their experiences are, just listen to what you're saying, it creates a completely different safe space. And there's something called radical empathy, and it's so interesting. So pointing out wrong for someone to feel the way that they do. So basically, they shut down because they have shame, and that makes it worse So are you safe to actually feel the way that you feel? Are you surrounding yourself in environments that allow you to feel the way you feel and to express your desires and to explore new opportunities? And are your relationships full of support? That maybe seasons sometimes change and situations are different and that's okay I think also that what I've learned is to validate other people's feelings, and that teaches us to validate ourselves. So maybe instead of lashing out at other people or judging, we can take a pause and before we respond, maybe we can just let them have their feelings and allow ourselves to have our feelings. That's part of not controlling. That's also part of us not having to overexplain. And trusting. Trusting is such a big one for me because I don't feel like we have to explain everything that we do, every desire that we have, because people are different. It's going to change. We're hopefully going to evolve. Hopefully, we're going to experience new things in life. And I can't make that commitment if I need to have to justify everything that I'm doing, and I don't want others to feel that way around me either. my children are part of this example. They are gonna make choices that I don't necessarily want for them, or I wouldn't maybe do myself, but that's part of being a parent, trusting that they're going through the process. We're here to support. We're here to offer a safe space and be the example. Number one, be the example. Show them what a loving relationship is between you and your partner. Show them what a safe home and family meals are like. Show them what a vacation is like. Show them that you can have fun together, that you don't have to control all of their decisions, and that's planting the seeds and letting the harvest grow because they are not yours to control, just like you don't want somebody to control you or your decisions and how you want to be a mom, how you want to be a wife, how you want to run your business, how you want to fill in the blank So I think that the resolution is when we integrate and we take what happened and let it be part of your story, so you're not denying it or excusing it, but you're also not carrying the weight of it. And if that makes sense to you, then where your energy is going is pretty clear. Your energy's going to your desires and the things that you want to focus on, and what you're gonna focus on is what you intend So my takeaways are going to be when we are willing to accept the darkness, it's only then that we can find the light. And to heal, we have to learn to process. And lastly, how we think about it versus seeing the situation for what it really is, the facts That is so important because if your energy is leaking out and you're not able to really discern things for what they actually are, your body's going to in turn store those emotions, and it will create something within you that is a block. I hope this is helpful. Share it with a friend if you think that somebody needs to hear this today, and I look forward to our next episode, beautiful mamas. Enjoy the back to school season and embrace the structure that is coming ahead. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you found this episode helpful, please follow or subscribe to the Integrative Mother Experience. That way you won't miss out on future episodes. Feel free to share it with another mom if you think that it would be helpful. You can also start today by grabbing my free checklist or joining my free Private Time Mama community, which is on my website, theintegrativemotherexperience.com. Scroll down, enter your name and email, and you will start receiving the information right away to start connecting with other moms. Follow me on Instagram. You can DM me there @timewithsarahswift. Have a joy-filled day.