Foundations of Emotions
and Personal Relationships
I have found there to be nothing basic about the approach to primal human emotions. In this chapter we will discuss the differing opinions on how many central core emotions exist. There are several feeling and emotion charts out there for you to use, and they are a wonderful tool to better help you identify with your feelings. I strongly encourage you to do a little searching on your own to find the emotional pattern chart that you resonate with should you need one.
Ekman’s Feeling Wheel
Psychologist Dr. Paul Ekman has stated that the most commonly held belief is that there are six basic emotions according to facial expressions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust.21
Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion
Another famous doctor, Dr. Robert Plutchik (also an American psychologist), theorizes there are eight primary emotions: joy, sadness, trust, disgust, fear, anger, surprise, and anticipation. Plutchik created the wheel of emotion based on this theory. In it are eight primary emotions followed by ten postulates (defined as the truth of something as a basis for reasoning).22
A Breakthrough?
Recent studies out of the University of Glasgow have offered a new challenge to the six-emotion model—there might just be four expressive patterns. Dr. Rachael Jack and her team developed software to generate a range of different face movement patterns by tracking the muscles of facial expression. They asked participants from different cultures and categorized each face movement by emotion. The four latent patterns they discovered came from an analysis of more than sixty different emotions such as cheerfulness, terror, unhappiness, and shame. They then analyzed the relationship between the face movement patterns (muscles of facial expression) and the participants’ responses to mathematically model the specific face movement patterns. They looked at how the participants in different cultures associate with these different emotion categories. By analyzing the resulting set of more than sixty facial expression models, they discovered four latent expressive patterns that correspond to smiling, pouting, scowling, and wide-eyed gasping. Of the original six primary emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust, anger and disgust as well as fear and surprise share the same characteristics and don’t register until later on. According to Dr. Jack: “What our research shows is that not all facial muscles appear simultaneously during facial expressions, but rather develop over time supporting a hierarchical biologically-basic to socially-specific information over time.” 23
Feelings versus Emotions
There are many discrepancies between what we consider to be feelings and emotions. Through research, I’ve found that emotions are experienced physically and can be measured by things such as brain activity, blood flow, facial expressions, and even body positions. Feelings, on the other hand, are experienced through the mental process and therefore cannot be measured as specifically. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter all that much whether we identify an experience as a feeling or an emotion; when it comes to the way our body feels things, I prefer the term experience over the fine distinctions of thoughts, feelings, or emotions.
Emotions and Poison
As I see it, the emotional body does not give context only to the mind. I prefer to focus instead on the mind/body connection. Everything perceived through mental awareness and emotional depth is equally experienced through the entire body. The way you perceive your truths, process them, and express yourself through those truths are an integral part of the whole.
When it comes to our emotional health, I strongly believe that the emotions that are not processed and released tend to be the root cause of dis-ease. While genetics and lifestyle factors affect our health, we can easily discount how powerful the emotional piece is to the whole. Because my specialty is emotional release work through hands-on body work, I have a different perspective with regard to emotions and how they can affect the body. When left beneath the surface, they can create a host of illnesses within the body that likely will end up labeled under many diagnoses that still cover up the core truth. By acknowledging your emotional body, you can recover your power and reverse many illnesses that present as strictly physical. It’s never one over the other, physical over emotional. You must not dismiss one of these aspects. One can be the primary root of the dis-ease, but both are powerful players in creating imbalance within the system. Both must be approached and treated equally to restore balance.
It is interesting (and rather disappointing) to note that very few body-related events can be nailed down as X definitely causes Y. What causes something may never be fully understood, so it follows that the cure will also never be a one-size-fits-all or a one-script protocol—it’s always a combination of factors from different sources. Both the original causes and the liberation of illness have firm footing in our bodies’ emotional layer. To discount this in any way is potentially damaging for your healing. Body healing through the use of emotional release is often done through hands-on energy work. Touching the physical body with a particular practice and intention allows us to release and remove the embedded emotions within the tissues.
When not being expressed, validated, and processed, emotions can turn on you. They bury down deep, releasing some sort of stink gas (that’s a technical term!) as they burrow in. That stink gas becomes the toxic waste and poison that deposits itself into the tissues of your body. From there, a garden of rotten, putrid pain and anguish begins to grow. Yes, the gardens of the body can be glorious or poisonous. It’s up to us to plant and grow wisely. We must grow them with wisdom and deliberation. Tending to our own gardens is something that needs to be taught (or re-taught) in a healthier context if we wish to reap the best fruits and flowers. If only more of us were taught in school how to handle our feelings, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in a way that yields healthy outcomes. If you are offered these things, it likely came from really incredible parents or a great therapist. We need to be taught better skills in order to change the way we play life’s game.
An Oncology Referral
I have been blessed to witness seeing someone who had a certain type and stage of cancer whose body was resisting the chemotherapy be able to accept the treatment once they released the excruciating emotional pain she had been avoiding. She was able to allow her body to heal herself through the release of the emotion embedded into the area beneath. This was done in conjunction with the physical treatments that were necessary to save her life. Her oncologist sent her to me to help her body accept the treatment she needed to save her life. Together, we uncovered the seed down deep under the area where the cancer was growing. As with many cancers that develop in the reproductive areas, there is a reason to look into history of sexual abuse. This is not to say in any form or fashion that if you or someone you know has issues in this area, I am pointing fingers and asking you to look for things that are not there; there are no hard and fast rules of any kind. What I am pointing out is that when it comes to a body disruption, especially in the more sensitive reproductive areas for men and women, it is valuable to explore first to rule out that particular emotional component.
When the woman was just a toddler, an older male member of her family chose to explore his curiosities through her body without her consent or understanding. She did not even remember this had happened to her until much later in life. Sadly, it wasn’t until he made a big life change and expressed his regret and apology that the information was relayed to her. He came to her presenting this information and immediately asking for forgiveness. After receiving this news, it was a very short amount of time before she developed cancer in her ovaries. The damage was done—the cognitive power area (the mind) could manifest any action it needed in order to express the pain, trauma, shame, and guilt that accompanied his vile acts. This time, however, her body responded with a very serious, life-threatening disease.
It was through our emotional release session that I could help her to see the innocence of her child self. Whatever happened was not her fault. She began to cry so intensely with her whole body that I pulled a trash can up to the table in case she needed to vomit. Her letting out these emotions involved every cell, muscle, and tissue memory she had stowed away but was now coming out at once. I continued with my hands on her, bringing through her the mental imagery that allowed her to release the shame her body had locked into itself and held on to so tightly. The session was between two and three hours long; we could not stop until it was complete—a fully body release so exhausting that she could barely stand upon completion. It was an incredibly intense session and one that I will treasure for all of my life. I am honored to have been a part of it.
To our profound surprise and gratitude, the following week she went back to the oncologist. This time, however, her body no longer resisted the treatment as it had before. To date, she is now in year ten of remission. Her powerful healing came from the same exact place the illness grew from, within herself. From that same deep place inside herself, she allowed herself to heal and release the pain. In turn, her body released and reversed the illness that it had created. This is a dramatic, wild story of miracles and amazing healing, and it shows exactly how our emotions are related to physical treatment. Both were necessary to save this woman’s life.
When she celebrates her birthday every year, the woman sends me a note saying that she will never forget the role I played in her story of life. But the truth is that it was never me—I was simply the conduit for Spirit to work through. Ultimately, it was the decision within her own body to allow itself to heal, and so she did. I also hope your takeaway from this story is that you also have incredible power to heal yourself and set yourself free to live your life to the fullest. Everything and anything are possible.
Personal Relationships
A great part of our emotional body comes down to the relationships we have with ourselves and others. How we connect with those around us whether as a child, parent, friend, or lover affects our emotional layer exponentially. Every person who caused you pain or built you up has a direct effect on your emotional body. When we lose a partner, a loved one, or a pet, it takes an enormous toll on our emotional body. When we find a partner, find a new friend, have a child, or get a pet, this too can enhance our emotional body in the most glorious ways. Remember too that relationships are not just partners but also the many different dynamics between ourselves and others. For our purposes here, I offer the best advice based on the work I do with people and their emotional bodies. I hope it will be helpful and supportive to you.
Parent/child
Not every person who needs to heal their emotional body experienced trauma as children. There are a great many people who had wonderful families and homes. Some people consider their mom, dad, brother, or sister to be their greatest support system and the place they always return to in order to feel restored in their soul. I personally had wonderful and loving parents and siblings. I loved my childhood and treasure it. My worst trauma was in the loss of the best father anyone could have. He was my greatest supporter and I miss him terribly every day. Even though my home was full of love, it was my dad who had my back the way I needed someone to have my back. Removing that support taught me a lot of hard-earned lessons on how to become my own best friend. I’ll be honest and say that I became the typical girl with daddy issues. Who wouldn’t?
Many of us grew up in homes that did not always confirm that we are strong, healthy, capable people who can do anything we set our minds to. Too many children were abused physically, verbally, and/or sexually. There are a great many people out in the world who need serious support in the way of psychological counseling and (if comfortable to receive) hands-on healing as well. If this at all pertains to you, let me say this: You are a worthy, lovable person who never deserved that sort of treatment. It was never your fault. You deserve healing and freedom from the bondage that you did not create. I am so sorry if any of this happened to you. No one ever has the right to put their hands on you without your permission. Please seek help to learn how to free yourself and change the path ahead. You deserve all the goodness and love that life has to offer. You are worthy and you are loved.
Practice: Parent/Child Relationship
When it comes to family, the best thing you can do is keep the lines of honesty and humility open. If you have been keeping secrets from your family, now is the time to share them and free yourself. Ask for help if you need help. If you have an amazing family or an amazing family member, then please be open and give them the gratitude they deserve. Don’t ever assume a child just “knows” they are loved and appreciated. Share it. Say it often. Never miss the opportunity to share your love with the ones you trust the most.
Friendships
How many friends have we had throughout our lives that we thought would always be in our lives but are not anymore? Some friendships are meant to last a lifetime, while others come and go. We line up energetically and then tend to fall away when we or they make a shift that is no longer in alignment with the other. Who we match with is a reflection of where we are during each stage of our lives. Many friends come from sports teams, exercise classes, school, work, or who your children go to school with. There are friendships that help to lift us up and friendships that are ride or die. There are times when you find that a friendship you’ve had for a long time no longer feels good to you. Sometimes you make a shift that doesn’t match the other person, so they leave your life … and sometimes it’s you who leaves their life.
The most important thing that you can do if any of your relationships are shifting is to always be clear, kind, and honest. Don’t make big decisions without consulting the other person. Try to give them a chance to express themselves. Make a mutual choice together based on the realities of where you are in your lives. Nothing is worse than having a close friend leave our lives without the respect to say why they are choosing to leave. It is cowardly, cruel, and is no reflection of the time you had with each other. The importance of mutual choice goes for both friendships and partner relationships. I’ve personally experienced both in which the person left without being able to be honest and own up to the part they played. I have no respect for that. As well, I’ve also withheld my feelings about something and simply stepped back from people after seeing behaviors that told me clearly that when it would come to the big stuff, I wouldn’t be able to trust them fully. Being honest and up front about how you are feeling within any given situation is difficult, but you owe it to your relationships to be respectful of the time you’ve both put in before making any moves without letting them know why. My advice for friendships is do not expect from any friend more than you are willing to give. Be honest, be fair, and above all, be kind.
Friendships are some of our most glorious connections, and we need them in our lives. If you find yourself fighting often with friends, I suggest working with a therapist on behavior patterns and learning to take responsibility for your feelings and behaviors. Do not ever lie to your friends or loved ones. I know too many people who make up silly little lies to get out of things when if they just owned up, it would clean up a lot easier. I have an important personal rule that saves me a lot of grief, and it can save you too: If you lie to me, you will be removed from my life. I won’t lie to you, and I won’t allow you to lie to me three times. That said, I may not always offer up how I’m feeling freely. If asked, I will always tell my truth. I will not line up with people who aren’t the same way.
I received a nugget of wisdom from my dear friend Ashli Callaway (spiritual counselor) in a conversation we had recently that was so powerful and simple that I thought everyone should hear it: She said to me that over the years we have collectively done a disservice to our relationships when we were not true to ourselves and weren’t honest in the moment when something hurt us. She said that she works with her child on sharing her feelings in the moment they happen because she wants her child to feel empowered while sharing how she feels.
The next time someone says something hurtful to you (even if they didn’t realize it was hurtful), be still; hold the space in the moment; and simply, kindly, and honestly say: “That really hurt my feelings” or “It embarrassed me when you said this to me in front of other people.” It gathers the energy, honors it, disposes of it, and creates a wholly different dynamic within our relationships. If we immediately stop and share our feelings, it can prevent the days of festering and obsessing on how something affected us. The way my friend presented it was soft, kind, and I believe it holds the power to shut down any fighting tendencies. It would be very difficult to yell back at someone who simply, softly, and kindly said, “You hurt me.” What more is there to say to that other than “I’m sorry”? Our strength is in our honesty. It will only create stronger foundations within our relationships.
Partner relationships
Who we choose as love partners is a direct reflection on what we feel we deserve. We are capable of experiencing the level of happiness and love to the same level that we can experience the depths of darkness and pain. That emotional energy can move just as deeply in both directions depending on what we allow in our bodies and in our lives, so choose wisely. Going through a breakup is something that can be devastating and last for a really long time. The truth is, I hope that at some point in your life you’ve had your heart broken. Why? Because I think when it comes to love relationships, those experiences are necessary in order for your soul to grow. To put it another way, those heartbreakers from the past were actually big openers into who you are becoming and what you are no longer willing to accept. They were (or are still) a chance for you to grow beyond what makes you feel anything less than loved and accepted exactly as you are. Lord knows I didn’t always make good choices before I met my life partner, nor was I always a partner who exhibited behavior I could be proud of. Like most things in life, there was never a strictly one-sided fault unlike what we usually describe. I am grateful for most of the experiences, but I’d be lying if I said I was grateful for all of them! But more than any heartbreak, I hope you are not currently in a place where you feel as though you have to accept treatment that breaks your heart. I read a statement a long time ago from the book It’s Called a Breakup Because It’s Broken that resonated with me about the description of a broken heart: “Being brokenhearted is like having broken ribs. On the outside it looks like nothing’s wrong, but every breath hurts.” 24 Those sorts of pains get buried deep into ourselves and we often turn inward and decide that we ourselves are broken.
It’s not easy to heal from those wounds, and many carry those scars and pains well past the expiration date of healthy. I refer to a story in my last book about working on a woman who was in her sixties and held a pain behind her shoulder blade (betrayal is the emotion pattern stored in that area). When we got to it through energy work, she realized the pain was from high school when her boyfriend cheated on her with her friend. Once she remembered it and released it, we both heard an audible pop! as the energy left her body. If you don’t learn how to process through and let go of those old wounds endured during difficult relationships, they will park in the body for life. Once we learn to acknowledge the pain, feel it once more and then snap and break it out of its place in the body, we can reclaim our lives.
If you are in a relationship that you are unsure of, please know that if children enter the picture, anything that bothers you now will become a much larger issue. You deserve to have a healthy, happy, loving relationship. You also need to focus on becoming the partner in a relationship that you keep hoping to find. Coming into any new relationship with the same sour behaviors that created unhealthy connections in the past will only continue to build unhealthy foundations. If you want something new, you have to do the work, and it begins with owning up to the part you play in how things progress. If you don’t call yourself out on things and apologize, don’t expect anyone else to do the same. Relationships hold up the mirror so that you can see yourself more clearly. Clean that mirror up.
You are powerful beyond your imagination, and what you deserve is related to exactly who you are and what you put out into the world. Ideally, you would look for a partner who is already whole, who has done the work required to be with someone like you (provided you too have done your work). No partner is here to make you whole, and that was never the goal. Finding love that complements who you are and the direction your life is heading is incredible, and I wish that for you. There is such a sense of peace and confidence when you find someone who supports all that you are. I want partners on both sides to respect each other and be inspired by each other. Each person is responsible to rise to be the best person they can possibly be. But for it to work and last, both must be in agreement on the same goal. If the goal is to be together for life, then both people need to focus on staying together. There is no room for wandering eyes or hands if you are in a committed relationship. If you have to make excuses for your partner, you might want to reconsider the deal you’ve struck with them. If you want to be healthy in relationships, be clear with your intentions and expectations and stick to them. Boundaries are your friends.
It is in partner relationships where we get the most out of our emotional state—good or bad. This is where the big learning lessons come in. If you are in a relationship that doesn’t make your life better or you find yourself feeling less than wonderful, it might be time to really take stock in where you are currently. Remember also that there is so much power in being single. Being alone and being lonely are two very different things. You deserve to be happy and live an incredible life. If you feel like someone is holding you back, you must be willing to take responsibility for the fact that the actual person holding you back is you. Do not stay someplace that is not consistent with the level of love and affection that you are willing to give. When we line up with a partner who sucks the life from us, our emotional bodies take a beating for it. We’ve all been in relationships like that at some point or another, but I hope we have grown from that place and now settle for nothing less than real happiness.
The amount of people who are secretly miserable but look like they’re in the best relationship in the world on social media is much higher than you may think. One day everything is fine, and the next they change their status from married to divorced, in a relationship to single, or the dreaded it’s complicated. While it may be tempting to reach out, do your best not to air all your relationship problems on social media. Clean up your love space in private. Especially if you are going through a divorce, be smart and put nothing out there that can be used against you in a court of law.
My offering to you with regard to a loving relationship is this: you deserve to be happy, healthy, and loved. You must also be willing to be a partner who is happy, healthy, and loving. You will get what you put out into the world, so focus on yourself and make your life the best it can be. You cannot ask for an incredible partner if you are not one yourself. Do the work to be what you are looking for in a partner and remember: you are already whole. You are beautiful, sexy, and an amazing lover, so don’t give that stuff away too freely. Everyone wants what you’ve got. Be choosy and hold everyone (including yourself) to the highest standards. Above all, always choose you when it comes to love. Fall in love with you first.
If you are looking for love and haven’t found it yet, the practice that appears here helped me find the love of my life. I offered this little tidbit to a friend who did the same thing, and she found her love too, so maybe there is something to this! If you are already happily in love, you can use this same trick to manifest something else that you desire because it works in the same way. I have no idea why the paper plate works better than writing on plain paper, but for this exercise, it just does. Maybe it’s because the paper is a circle and thus has no end, which is potentially what you are seeking in your love relationship. Maybe it’s also because a plate signifies an offering. Or maybe it’s because we use a plate to feed our bodies and nourish our souls, or it’s the combination of being round and feeding our desire. Regardless, take out a paper plate and write every single dream you have of what you want either in a partner or in something else you strongly desire. Fill that plate and don’t worry about going around the circle—it can be messy. Do not worry about the organizing of your thoughts and how they lay out. Just lay them out exactly as you are feeling them. Write down every quality you are looking for. Be extremely specific. Bring them to life with what you are writing on that plate. Don’t leave out anything.
Once you’ve written your dream person or goal into real life, take that plate and go outside under the moon and stars and just sit with it. Feel the mindset you have created and the space for energy you are opening for this person to make their way to you. Keep that plate close to you. Put it somewhere in your house that reminds you that this is now happening. It worked for me, it worked for my friend, and I have total faith that it can work for you too! Fill your plate well.
The Stories We Tell
One way to tell whether the approaches we’ve taken to heal our emotions are working is noticing what stories we are telling ourselves and others. Are we still sticking to the victim story we tell everyone when they want to try to understand us? Or has it shifted so that while it is still part of our story, it is no longer the main story we tell, nor does it define us the way it used to. We don’t have the same attachment to it we once did. We now clear patterns and allow ourselves to heal through it. Changing our story requires effort and awareness to omit the things we are so used to sharing. It is equally difficult to add the things we are so used to omitting.
Remember the saying that the best revenge is living well? It’s totally true, but there is more to it than that—it’s also getting to that power place where we are not only living well but are also no longer needing to prove to anyone just how well we are living. When we reach a new place of contentment and inner peace, we shed the compulsion to try to convince anyone otherwise. If you were a victim to a traumatic event, notice whether the dialogue surrounding the events has changed at all. See if you still carry the same resentment, attachment, or addiction to talking about it. If it hasn’t left your point of conversation, don’t be too hard on yourself; shifts of this kind take a lot of time and attention to make them stick. Keep working at it. You will find that it’s been a really long time since you’ve worried yourself with that person or situation. This is a particularly big one to reveal if you are in transition from the old dialogue to the new. Pay close attention, but don’t use it as the only indication that you are doing your work and putting yourself at the front for a change. After moving past the story we tell about attachments, pains, and trauma, let’s get into the story we are telling ourselves about what we really want moving forward. It’s just as easy to get stuck in a dialogue that may or may not be in alignment with who you are becoming. You are in charge of you.
21. Neal Burton, “What Are Basic Emotions?” Psychology Today, June 21, 2019 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201601/what-are-basic-emotions.
22. Burton, “Basic Emotions.”
23. BBC News,“All human behavior can be reduced to ‘four basic emotions’,” BBC.com, February 3, 2014. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-26019586.
24. Greg Behrendt, Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt, It’s Called a Breakup Because It’s Broken (New York: Broadway Books, 2006), 6.