When I first started this journey back on Easter of 2012, I had no idea where it would lead me. Somehow it seemed as if I was being led away from a life that had not been right for me and shoved onto an entirely new path. Now almost eight years later I can see why and it seems that I’ve finally landed on a style of coaching that can be helpful to anyone at anytime, emotional wellness. If there is one topic of conversation that could use a giant shove forward, I think it would be that of emotional wellness. This post doesn’t need to include a list of current events that are screaming, quite loudly for help.It would make sense that an introduction into emotional wellness would begin simply with emotions.
As I began to do my own personal growth work it became clear that I was very lost when it came to this subject. And now that I’ve done extensive coaching with a varied and wide range of clients, I’m seeing that this may be closer to be the norm for many if not most of us. In fact I had to take a long hard look at my own parenting and what I had contributed to the pattern by neglecting my son’s emotional wellness, and what that now reflects on his adult life.
Somehow along our evolutionary path, learning about emotions seems to have subtly transformed into a belief that no learning was required, instead it became assumed that we should instinctively know how to navigate our feelings. But as things have become more convenient, they have also become more complicated. The natural training through the examples of family and friends has not kept up with the changes and with each generation, as we move faster, it’s quite possible emotional intelligence is slowing down. Learning how to identify, understand, process, release and regulate our emotions should not be considered something that comes to us as naturally like our need for air, water and food. The result are several generations who are staggeringly under-prepared for adulthood and we are seeing that this is truly disastrous.
We desperately need something that will take the fear away from the topic of emotional wellness, as so many of us have been conditioned to ignore what we are feeling. One thing that could have a large scale impact is to differentiate between emotional wellness and mental wellness, which could be tough considering how much money there is to be made in pharmaceuticals. However, having the ability to pin point the difference could have a huge impact on things like addiction, depression and anxiety. From my own personal experience, I was able to break a lifelong food addiction by understanding my own emotions and doing the work I needed to process and release those long trapped; and secondly, I stumbled upon mindfulness once all that old baggage had been cleared.
Thank you for reading this first post in a series. I look forward to hearing feed back and am excited to write further on this topic.
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