On average, the duration of an emotion moving through the body is around 90 seconds in its purest form. Like water moving through a hose, the water/emotion/energy arrives and wants to move. When it doesn’t move it creates build up. When in public spaces, work, etc., connect to your breath to regulate and be sure to schedule time with yourself to move this energy later.

It’s not about feeling it, getting stuck in it, and throwing you off track. It’s here to help move energy, clear your channel, and strengthen your resilience. The reason we suffer is because we aren’t willing to feel most of what arrives and if/when we do, we get stuck in the story of it (the mind) rather than the sense (the body).

The reference to 90 seconds comes from neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, who explains that when we experience an emotion, the chemical process triggered — such as a surge of adrenaline or cortisol — lasts about a minute and a half! I say this excitingly because I’ve sat in my “stuff” for years, or I’d avoid it. The relationship I have with healing shifted once I immersed myself in somatic work. I began to allow myself to feel more deeply and create safe spaces where I can feel the full feel. Feeling, for me, has always been scary because I’ve been very heightened since sliding out into the world, and I didn’t know how to hold these big emotions that seemed so heavy.

It didn’t feel safe to. I didn’t know what to do with the emotions that came up, so I tucked them away into a little backpack that turned into a very big backpack, and I carried it around with me throughout my life. Yet, these emotions are not meant to be held and carried with us as much as they need to be held by us — the part of ourselves that seemed too much before.

The conflict, or more so the space between feeling an emotion and suffering, arises from what happens after those 90 seconds — the inner-dialogue — and to be conscious of it. If we continue to dwell on the emotion, replay the situation in our minds (the story), or resist the feeling, we create suffering.

I have a long history of suffering, and I had a very challenging time choosing different because I thought I needed to feel this way to feel it through. But it was the story I was at war with and found myself looping and emotionally drained.

Story versus sense: The emotion can feel heavy or burning, textured, etc., whereas the story is the story. What is the story that’s running in your mind that’s like a whisper in the background directing your life? Notice the tone of the voice/thoughts, and when it’s loud and shouting, etc., it’s the ego in panic.

Suffering isn’t a prerequisite for happiness.

Overall, the suffering stems from attachment to the story or resistance to the emotion, rather than allowing it to pass through. Feeling emotions means fully acknowledging, accepting, and experiencing them without judgment — with your witness on and redirecting your focus, setting boundaries and an intention when feeling an emotion through — while suffering is when we suppress or cling to those emotions with the story running.

Emotions are temporary — and it’s important to create a safe space for yourself to fully experience your human experience — welcoming in emotions and parts of yourself as you come into wholeness. As long as you want any type of intimate relationship, feeling is required — the pleasure, the pain, all of it, the full range — not suffering.

The nervous system and our body’s reactions hold onto experiences — whether joyful, pleasurable, or painful — in similar ways. This is due to emotional and physical blockages that form from past trauma or unprocessed emotions, which get stored in the body. Through somatic work, these stuck energies are released and with that space now available, both pleasure and pain can be fully experienced, witnessed, and released. By staying present with these emotions rather than dragging them along with you, people can free themselves from the grip of suffering tied to both pleasurable and painful experiences.

This isn’t easy. It also doesn’t have to be hard with loving support. You are becoming the holder of your life, and what’s needed is your willingness to explore — your curiosity alongside your witness being on is enough. It’s not personal; it’s the sovereign path — the spiritual evolution and journey you are on. May this find you and reach you — 

to remind you of who you really are. 

Take A Moment

A moment in silence invites you into the relationship that you have with silence. It invites you into the relationship that you have with yourself. It is an invitation for you to connect to the part of you that is seeking your attention — your guidance and holding. It offers you space to see between each blink so you can see more clearly; the space between each breath, sentence, and story. It offers you space to connect more clearly and to hear your own voice; not listening to what you can hear with your ears, yet what you can feel in your heart.