What would the highest version of yourself do?

Love yourself, the way you are, because you have a good reason, and you always had one frankly, for acting the way you did, with the level of information and awareness that you had; forgive and understand yourself, the way you are, now, in the past, and the future. You are just human, and all inspired action starts from acceptance of what is. You are not supposed to be better, you are not supposed to be different, you are not supposed to do more, or be less, for other people, or yourself.

Let it flow, let it be.

Love yourself when you are frustrated, ashamed, or afraid - like a mother would love their child, no matter what they do. Love yourself when you are happy, strong, and shining bright light - think of the most supportive person you know, and allow their voice of wanting you to be happy in your terms to be the strongest voice.

Because feeling & releasing emotions is an integral part of mental health - when accepted, and embraced, they disappear. As Elizabeth Kübler-Ross researched it, they are part of the change cycle, of movement:

So if you don't feel something, you keep it 'stored' in your body, in your subconscious - and cannot move on to the next phase.

So you need to be safe enough to feel what needs to come up, without being judged nor judging yourself - which can be difficult to find in the case of trauma (so if you don't have the luck to have an amazing family member or friend, go find a therapist, who is trained in listening without judgment, and to keep you safe while you feel).

For true learning, only consider (also from yourself) constructive criticism.

What is constructive criticsm?

When a person values who you are, and what you are trying to get to, you can give consideration to their criticism. Maybe they are right, maybe it applies to them more than to you - but you can listen. If someone considers you to be of less value, consider it a limited perspective: they see some people as more worthy than others, and it probably cuts them off from a lot of life. That's not your problem. Focus on yourself, on your own value, on what you know, on what is true. Focus on all the people that ever loved you, inspired you, and that you loved: love made you. You wouldn't be here without it. Keep that worthy, loveable, sacred space in yourself pure (Maya Angelou). Nobody else but love has a right to get there.

Love the parts of yourself that you have been rejecting (we often think we need to reject what we see; but actually loving what IS, allows it best to improve; to evolve to its best & highest, organically.

Rather than pulling on the stem to try to make it grow faster, let the seed naturally grow towards warmth, love, and space, at its pace. You can't force development without breaking something. The magical ingredient is Trust. Einstein said: 'Everybody is a genius; but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid'. Other people's opinions are theirs - and reflect their particular vision of the world, informed by who they are. Maybe you are some brand of something they've never seen before. They don't have a concept for you yet that would do you justice. Others may - look for these ones. And develop your own vision of yourself, with the help of whoever channels love.

There is a fascinating piece of research from a study where a classroom was randomly separated in two, and the teachers were told that one group was made of geniuses, and the other was constituted of mentally challenged, hopeless cases. After 6 months, the groups had become what their teachers thought they were: the "geniuses" had high grades and were acting intelligent, and the "stupid pupils" had results matching the expectations.

The same goes with love: partners in successful couples slightly idealize each other. When they do not, the couple breaks apart. In other words, loving who someone is right now AND the potential that we see in them is the best present you can make someone: it actually makes them better. And the same goes for yourself: loving who you are right now AND who you would like to be is transformative, especially on the long run. Always start with acceptance.

So what happens physically?

So as Alexander Lowen (a disciple of Reich) uncovered it, we store repressed, unbearably painful emotion in the body. And as my sister (who studied psychology) put it: there is no (sense of) time in psychology. If a traumatic event happened when we were two, and is left unsolved, the body still remembers, as if it was yesterday - up until the resistance is lifted, because a stronger identity (or another person) is allowed to protect, hear and heal that part.

The same goes for traumatic thoughts & emotions that happened yesterday, without finding the appropriate release of feeling the extent of the emotion: it gets stuck in the body, who is there to tell us what needs to be dealt with.

So, we want the extra/stuck energetic charge/information of pain to be free to circulate again (our drive is, like the universe, to expand; we expand in warmth/love, and get cold if rejected (physically as well: we temporarily disconnect our attention from a painful place, so as to allow it to heal by our attention focusing on a larger picture that makes us feel safe and well). We need to make the body and mind safe to feel again, safe to be full again (see Alexander Lowen's incredible amount of work on body-emotional release work) – its full side of the story expressed in an atmosphere of love.

We have to feel safe enough to really listen (to a part of ourselves), with the intent to hear, to understand (true curiosity). This can go a long way to subsequently dropping all resentment, fear, or tension (or the self-attacking mental or physical condition).

So take the time to feel (cry with supportive people, knowing it's good for you -you're making space!), to love your bodily vehicle (emotional & physical release + bodily care). This will free up available resources: when a repressed emotion is attended to, it frees up energy.

How to listen to an emotion?

From a grounded, embodied place of compassion (peace + love), from a focused space of human validation, care and acceptance of what is; AND also from a wider, eternal space of peaceful interconnection (we are not only our mind, body, or emotions: this is the highest part of us).

Here is a quick illustration of what I mean:

We can listen to our body sensations and our emotions (what's in the circle) from the larger spirit or awareness that all is well (from outside the circle, from our awareness: focusing on higher order values in the background, from our higher self that knows that this too shall pass, and we will eventually understand what it meant in the grand scheme of things).

Peace and love, safety, connection, etc. (higher values) become the larger container, FROM which we can listen to what is.

Then empathically reflect the emotion that is active (with words, heart resonance, body language - while keeping a sense of larger safety and well-being yourself - before attempting to reason someone/yourself. To be more precise, calm down the nervous system's overload by seeing, hearing & empathically resonating with the emotion/feeling -the pain, disappointment, fear, or excitement-, *before* feeding the system a command, or information to change its course: when the emotion is recognized, we become capable of extending to more information, and can take sustainable, long-term action.

Instead of being judged and being afraid, or ignored, these newly *seen* (admired, acknowledged, related to) parts will release energy, and give way to vitality of the whole system.

You can do sports that help you release the accumulated emotion (go for a run, cycle really fast, throw punches in a boxing class). You can also go to nature and let your nervous system synchronize with its healthy rythm, the best for us, and reset - and if you can, barefeet (or garden, observe a plant, look at the sky!). On the emotional side, therapy can be a good idea. There are also arts (painting, dance movement) therapies that combine movement and emotion, and many other ways to  energetically or physically help the bodymind release its tensions and come to harmony (massages, acupuncture, chiropractor, etc.). All of these help you get insights or get past stuck situations bypassing the conscious mind and its defenses. And by yourself, you can certainly draw, write/journal about what's going on emotionally, make something with your hands, play with your child, or make love - anything that makes you let go of thinking, and get into the present moment with your whole body and mind! And if you want/can let out the emotional part in a way that doesn't shame you, nor hurt others, you've hit the jackpot! Let it out!

Don't forget to let go, come to rest, and connect with that eternal silent space (meditate, take mindful moments, go to nature). Emotional release can feel tiring: emotional pain can be 5 times as taxing to the nervous system as physical pain: build in the rest, recovery, and detachment you need in your day - from which you can rebuild the necessary connections, and have the resources and an expanded capacity to take on what's next (= resilience: in the body, broken muscle fiber grows stronger during rest; in the brain, we build neuronal connections and prune/clean up the useless ones: learning and healing take place during rest, daydreaming, and letting go).

Take your space to feel your full state, right now. 

And love, love, love yourself, for all that you are! We all deserve a joyous, conscious, and loving you!

Try this:

Notice how you are feeling: what's the state of your emotions right now? How is your body? How is your mind?

And how are you relating to those states? (compassion, annoyance, judgment, peace..?) Just notice.

Now, look for a part of you that brings you calm, compassion, and peace right now. It might just be your sense of Self on this Earth, or the Space that exists between things (or your sense of connection to Nature, or to Loved ones). 

Breathe while listening to it. Let it grow, unfold, take space in your awareness. 

Now go to your inner body field: feel yourself from the whole area of the inside of your body, from inside your toes to inside your ears ;)

Now notice: what's an area of your body that calls your attention right now? 

If it could feel and communicate some feeling to you now, what would it be saying? 

Can you welcome it and hold your attention on listening to the feeling of it, just being present with it for a minute?

And if the sensation moves/morphs, can you let your attention travel with it, to the new place? 

Hold your attention on the new place fully - as if you were listening with loving attention to the next words that were going to come out? Keep listening for a minute. A lot is happening, it is just subtle. 

How has the initial sensation changed? How about your general state? How do you feel in your body?

How is your mind? How is it being yourself on this Earth right now?

Connect, Disconnect, Replay

We are relational beings.

Like fuses, we disconnect to save the system. When the connection is letting through too much negative information, we can't maintain our ego structure - and use our survival system: fight (blame, self-attack, or shame: we understand less), flight (withdrawal, denial: we see no problem, when there is one) or freeze (we freeze our thoughts, and our body movements). Our earthly personality litterally thinks it's going to die. So at the expense of that area which is now disconnected (a particular need/value), the fuse 'jumps' to maintain the whole system's integrity, we suppress the awareness of a connection, and push back the painful association between that value or behavior and what happened into our subconscious. Then all we've got to do is to hide or protect our pain behind defenses (denial, anger, blame, distraction - all in order not to feel that old pain). 

People come on our path and trigger those old pains of our deeper needs/values being repressed/denied. We all need to be loved for who we *really* are, for example. We pretty much all have had to suppress and deny parts of ourselves in childhood (later this suppression is perpetuated by the environment, or the larger culture). We then spend our life ignoring that parts of us are there, but dormant - up until they get awakened by exposure to another person, culture, or life circumstances. If we don't feel safe to, nor know how to safely access and honor our true self within that social environment, we disconnect emotionally from the situation. This buys us time to get back to safety, and maybe to find a less triggering environment or person to process our  emotional overload in safety (without being stuck in pain and shame again - as our inner child once was).

So there is tremendous value in taking a break, resting, sleeping. When the mind stops going in overdrive and comes to rest, the other part of us comes into play: in the brain, the life that is at work in us flushes out the waste, and we also make new neuronal connections: we learn at night and in rest, play, or emotional safety (when we are not trying, nor fighting anything), after the wear and tear of being taken out of our comfort zone. As in the body where we rebuild torn muscle tissue, we actually become stronger during rest. 

Similarly, finding the right person or the right environment to feel with is a priority. For full health and (mental) vitality, it is crucial that we gradually legitimize repressed parts of ourselves, taking other people as welcome triggers in our evolution and reconnection to the whole. So it often doesn't feel good, but the faster we can legitimize those inner needs and values, the less painful it is.

We don't have to blame anybody for not having empathy by the way: people are not always in condition to hear us, they are simply human: sometimes up, sometimes down - dealing with their own bagage of experiences and overwhelm. We just have to find other people that are in a better position at this time to 'contain' our pain (able to connect as a worthy human being regardless of our pain).

When we are experiencing increasing upset around other people (and rejecting them), we are the ones who need to 'sync out' and take some space (and possibly explain it to our partners). Our negative opinions are loveless because we are lacking love ourselves (scarcity mindset): it just is more useful to take a break and come back to the relationship when we are full and can use our heart as well, and see the whole picture (us + them). We need to listen to ourselves and take care of our deeper need, from the most empathetic, loving, caring part of us.  

So ask someone to hold space for you (giving instructions if possible, correcting the course when needed). If you feel you can do it yourself, take some time to feel what has been on your mind/nerves/heart; while feeling safe, here, now. Dr. Sue Morter describes this as helping our higher (adult) self welcome, listen to, and take care of our hurt inner child-part. She starts by anchoring safety in the body, here through breathing, slowing down, and becoming conscious of what's happening within us - while feeling safe, here-and-now.

When others (friends, colleagues, family members) are not feeling good, check your state first: are you feeling like being present, holding space to their pain and joy, a witness, just 'being', or rejoicing with them? Like (mentally, emotionally or physically) embracing in warmth and compassion? Like comforting, giving hope? If none of these, take a break, excuse yourself. Book another appointment at a later date. Give yourself (emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological, mental) self-care, you need it - to take care of others. If right now you are not in a position to help, that's OK. Make peace with the fact that right now, it doesn't have to be you: the wonderful thing about this life is that there are so many people, and what will be a chore (and not very effective) to you now will be easy and a pleasure for somebody else.

Equally, the person being helped might come to let go of the fact that everything has to be fixed in the way they prefer, at the time they want it. The letting go of control of the details, while keeping the objective of being well, reconnected to one's true self and others, is healing in itself. So sometimes the relational process doesn't feel very good, but it doesn't have to. The end stage is the letting go (of control), the rest, the peace that comes as a result of things falling into place, finally. And your trusting that the healing matters, not the details of who/when, will make it easier for them to heal.

Life is cyclic rythms, ebbs & flows, of connection and disconnect, of changing seasons. High energy - action, connection, 'positive' emotions - is good; low energy - rest, disconnect, 'negative' emotions - is good, too. You restore your system, you make space and allow it to expand further next time. Just like seasons: slowing down, and stillness, is the missing ingredient to sustainable growth. And when we are in scarcity (whether physically, emotionally or else), we see scarcity: so take care of yourself to still be connected to your heart.

A good (psychological) analysis (diagnosis) without empathy is missing half of the picture: we are dealing, always, with human beings doing their best in the (sometimes poor) circumstances they have been given. Then we bring the richness of what we experienced into the relationship, and it is possible to get back to a constructive relationship: what would we like together? What deeper needs are at play? How can we take into account both, for an enriching and renewed relationship? 

We are always connected, whether at a distance or physically face-to-face (lots of scientific experiements listed in The Intention Experiment, by Lynn McTaggart): let's make these connections peaceful and loving. The key is the life-sustaining alternating between loving connection & peaceful disconnect; it is this movement that sustains life.

In what state, and phase, are you right now?

What do you need to take good care of yourself? To reestablish the connection with who you really are? 

Everyone is a leader, when they consciously choose to hold the course of their inner compass in relationships, while staying connected

Why Leadership?

Because everyone has an impact on others, whether they want it or not; but leadership is deciding what type of impact you want to embody and inspiring people through your coherence. They follow you because they recognize something good in you.

Kevin Kruse from Forbes magazine (here) says that Leadership stems from social influence, not authority or power.

So what type of human being do we want to be, so others recognize what we have in common? Are you the leader you want to be?

Bronnie Ware (a terminal patients' nurse) dicovered from her work of working with patients on their dying beds, that we all really want: to spend time with our loved ones (beyond cultures), and to live our own lives (according to our own compass).

So human beings need an atmosphere of:

• Safety & Predictability: because they know we need to feel safe in the collective, and
  
• Openness & Trust: we need to be free to be/act different, in peace

Let's sum it up: Loving connections + Peacefully Free Individuals = We All need to Be Loved For Who We Are

So what is Leading with Love?

Leading with Love is Loving yourself  first. Why?

Because when you (*really*) love yourself, with compassion for your shortcomings, with enthusiasm and care for your assets, loving others comes easy. It's always just you doing the noticing...!

Because when we love ourselves with all our quirks and fallibilities, we love others more, in their human-ness (that is, not perfect); then they love us more, and it is a positive feedback loop that is contagious across our networks!

We want to develop a loving network of caring friends, family, colleagues and more, to foster resilience (the ability to get up when you fall down), because the reality of the larger support network allows our pain to be contained, to be carried when we need it the most.

Mayan wisdom sees the other as 'another you' - we are all made of the same fabric, interconnected:

How do I start Loving Myself?

Make it a practice!

Louise Hay's Mirror Work book was a revelation to me: but the long, painstaking work of loving myself was really worth it. It involves looking in the mirror every day for months on end and telling yourself nice things such as 'I love you', 'You deserve ...', etc. Excruciating at first (I couldn't do it, then left it for months, did half, then got back to it a year later and completed it - now it is still a resource).

Really, any self-loving activity will do : I love my 'spa days', where I pamper myself for hours in self-care and love. You can take care of your self through physical activity, emotional well-being, spiritual alignment (journaling, therapy, taking the time to think about what you would love, in detail), exposure to Nature, and connecting with people that will support you having a loving self-image (because they love your specific traits and strong points, love themselves at the same time, and are able to tell the difference, and to accept it).

We can learn unconditional love ourselves, loving who we are no matter what. Take care of ourselves, listen to ourselves, and reinvest the sphere of our own body, personality traits and our soul (or embodied values: the immaterial feeling turned into flesh, presence and movement in the here-and-now).

Look at ourselves like a loving mother would see their child: perfect, right now, beautiful - a piece of magic, really -, atoms maintained together in the delicate and energy-flowing balance that we are. Shining.

One practice is to go back to elevating emotions (that call for the strength of the heart's field): love, gratitude, bliss, hope, etc.

Then our whole body functions much more effectively, our brains think clearer, and we have access to much more information.

We get 'hunches', aha moments in this pleasurable flow. We are also more likely to help others, and thus to reinforce good feelings in the first place.

When we are safe, we think with all the information and emotion available to us: we are a full human being, with heart and mind (with our fully integrated brain - both hemispheres).

So make it a priority to create, maintain, and reestablish a safety bubble for yourself, which will act as a buffer from which to handle pain (because then the relative size of the pain or discomfort becomes manageable, if experienced against a backdrop of loving connections and self-compassion). In proportion to the extent of the goodness that is, pain becomes manageable. Make sure your awareness of the good things is large enough to allow you to take in and handle the challenging aspects of the human experience.

One of the ways is to practice gratitude; breathing exercises, body awareness work; another would be to start looking, really looking: the Magic of the Presence of who We Are is stunning, in all that is. Study cells, stars, atoms, light, consciousness. Or to get familiar with more unifying and uniting perspectives - about yourself and about the world.

What do you feel right now? What matters to you? What do you care about?

What's the first step you can take to go in the direction of the fulfillment of that need? What can you do to embody that value into your body, into your world?

Synergistic relationships start with emotional safety

Here is my definition of synergistic relationships:

Being fully in the moment with another, where we are both free to be ourselves, spontaneous and happy, grateful to be in this relationship. And because we are, the best insights come forth from the most enlivening, fun and pleasurable conversations.

We are both seen, and appreciated. We are allowed to make mistakes, because we know we will be forgiven - that the other will look for the generous interpretation. And thus we take risks: brainstorming then becomes an unending well of insights and creativity, of life-changing realizations and a generous source of self-esteem and appreciation for another's difference.

So basically, you get synergy (creative insights or actions as a result of the interaction) when people feel safe to be themselves due to a mutual feeling of unconditional acceptance. emotionally safe + engaged = synergy (1+1=3)

So how do we get there? What are the ingredients of synergistic (=safe) relationships?

First, love yourself (Free Up Your Emotional Energy by yourself, or with the help of someone else). Because when you don't (as you are), you feel unsafe around other people (they might wake up what you don't like about yourself). And then you either attack them (aggressive fear), or yourself (self-aggression). It all stems from conditional self-love: 'I only love myself if/when...; and not when/if...'. Unconditional self-love allows for safety and strength around other people.

Self-love is not about having a delusional, positive-only self-image: it is about understanding all aspects of yourself with kindness, acceptance, and possibly humor. You are doing your best, always have been, always will, and that's enough. You are learning. You are worthy of love and connection (like Brenée Brown says of the full-hearted, daring individuals that bounce back from pains, and dare to be human and vulnerable - and really live The power of vulnerability).

Second, understand others.

Why would I even want to understand (or learn, eek! ;) from difficult others? 

Connect to Full Capacity

Being empathically seen calms the nervous system, our brain patterns become coherent. When we can relate to another person as ourselves, when we see the common humanity, we feel safer. Then we are able to access more parts of our brain, heart, and body information: we think better, alone and together. We can easily feel relaxed yet engaged, collaborate, want to exchange information, be OK with our limitations, and complement each other.

Resilient: Bounce Back from Failure

When we know what it's like to be them, because we have been them, or we could be them (in the same circumstances), we reestablish dialogue, we restore circulation, we tear down this invisible wall of judgment, and really see the other, like us: with the same emotions, trying their best with what they've got.

Taking into account our and others' needs gives us rich personalities: we have more ways of being (more than one to-go, pre-set, default mode), which allow us to switch to something more efficient when an attitude doesn't work. This in turn makes us happier and more resilient (better able to bounce back from a failure or setback)... and happy, flexible/connected yet centered.

InterConnect for Growth

Each person has the potential to wake something up in us: other people are our best teachers. By admiration, frustration, fear, grief, or peace, we will be asked to remembering forgotten parts of ourselves, hence feeling finer aspects of ourselves, further expanding in how we relate to the world. We evolve each other through love and compassion (for ourselves and for others), piecing this giant puzzle back together.

Take your emotional reaction as a trigger to understand yourself more (to get the message your emotion is trying to communicate to you): what positive quality does this person have, that you might need to develop in yourself? Everyone brings a present with them - our task is, like a detective, just to uncover which one.

The higher the resistance, the more important this new value is for your life. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the treasure! This discovery is fundamental to altering your (up-till-now) personality and completing you, to help you expand and tackle a whole new level of challenges on your life path.

From this understanding, your action will come from real personal strength, integration (rather than simply reacting), from peace and connection to yourself, and others.

By admiring other ways, other qualities than the ones we are currently favoring or expressing ourselves, we integrate them into our new, expanded self: we connect to more, we become more resilient, we understand more - our self-image expands, and our awareness of our interconnection with the Whole expands as well. That's true safety: no enemies, no shame, no blame. It all is me, could have been me, or could be me in the future. Others are you, who made other choices - all understandable from the inside, in their environments. Now what do you want to live for this lifetime? 

Like the ocean, its flowing vortices representing each of our consciousnesses express our individual differences, no real actual separation exists between our spirits (at the sub-atomic level, it's all movement of atoms from the same base, switching to different combinations as our attention and energetic signature shifts). We are all expressing parts of a collective consciousness.

 The ocean is always flowing, within each of us, together as one.

After an intense emotional reaction, how do you get back to yourself?

What Value do you need to develop?

Science has shown it is your heart that emits the most powerful electro-magnetic field (your brain only comes second - the heart's field is 60 times bigger!), and researchers at the HeartMath Institute have been puzzled by their finding that the heart can even know things before our mind does (says Dr. Rollin McCraty, executive vice president and director of research for the Institute of HeartMath, in Boulder Creek, California -in the book The Intention Experiment by Lynn McTaggart- using Dr. Dean Radin's study with a computerized system of randomly generated arousing photos, hooking up his participants to a larger complement of medical equipment: 'after the heart receives the information, it communicates this information to the brain').

So how do we listen best? By loving ourselves & others.

What does it mean to love oneself?

Take care of your own heart; it is your engine, the most powerful tool you've got.

It is the lens through which you perceive the world: how you treat your own heart, or take care of your loving yourself with, and beyond, your emotions, will find an echo in how you treat others.

To love oneself if to listen really carefully to what makes you happy, unhappy, feel good or bad, if this particular action is giving you energy. And to go the way that builds you up. To give yourself compassion when you are feeling down, upset or scared of something.

Love more of your own diversity of behaviors, ways, moods, etc. Be kinder to yourself. Your inner self-talk should mirror the nicest person you know would talk to you. Because you will think clearer. And if you think clearer, you have more personal power.

Catch yourself listening to your own self-talk.

Then notice that if you can hear your thoughts, you are not them.

Your real you is the best, highest, clearest, most powerful, loving, peaceful, etc. version of yourself - sometimes called your soul or spirit, the part of you that has always been with you, no matter how young: how does that deeper, safe, peaceful, happy you feel?

Focus on the good, beautiful, awesome person you already are. Actively look for what's great in you.

Then start embracing the flawed human being that you are. An equally important part to loving what's good in you, is loving what's broken, weak, or simply low-energy in you! Self-compassion allows for empathy for others' failings and shortcomings. Because you have come to terms with yours, you have empathy for others'.

Because you have filled your mental space with self-respect, love, and empathy - you echo respect, appreciate, and compassion for others.

You have come full circle, congratulations! Relational peace and self-compassion are energy-efficient (when you think about the wasted energy on unnecessary fights, finding the sacred space from which you can hold your full humanity saves a lot of energy for later).

So what conditions need to be in place for more self-love?

We need to find a place and time to feel, where we can be contained with out pain, a person with whom to feel that overwhelming emotion in a way that we are legitimate for feeling it (= safe to be in pain, and be loved at the same time - that person could be us, a therapist, a friend, a family member...), because the person/people knowing it are in a good emotional/spiritual/physical place, yet can still connect to us, and hold us to the safety and goodness of this world.

So:

• Find the conditions in which to listen to your true self: by yourself, or with someone who doesn’t want to ‘fix’ your ‘broken’. You want someone who is kind, and engaged in being connected to you as a worthy person, no matter what state you are in, committed to listening to what's really important to you underneath, to your values and emotions, to your life path. Someone who has hope for you, trusts in your abilities, and respects your ways.

• Someone who knows it is generally safe and good to be here (or when you feel generally safe and good enough to feel your emotions), someone who has enough safety in them to ‘contain’ your insecurity, anchoring you to here-and-now in the process of listening.

• Take the time to really listen to your emotion and body here & now; resist the impulse to talk, do something, or think about something ‘better’.

• Feel your emotion long enough (it takes 90 seconds at most, so however bad it feels, it's doable) to sense what it is like in our body: is it moving? Describe and observe its size, shape, movement. Let it circulate and do what it has to do (reinforce our body/mind/value, feel the safety and harmony of the present moment, see how much you value something, etc.: all emotions have a good purpose , and a job to do.

• Feeling an emotion frees up mental and emotional space, and lets the body flow to its natural rhythm again. The final gain is that there is no bad emotion, it is simply is your soul pointing to an important need of yours through your body; and it will transform into strength.

And other people take their cue from us: they will treat us like we treat ourselves (and hence allow other people to treat us). So: self-love.

What can you do to take care of how you feel now/today/this week?

Is there someone safe you can feel with?

Read more: Heal from Cultural Disconnect