When changing your thoughts is not enough!

When changing your thoughts is not enough!

Haven’t you ever been kidnapped by an emotion? That on the one hand your head said… “nothing happens”, but your body reacted in the opposite way? Sweating, reddening of the skin, muscle contraction, inability to smile or smiling too much…?

Or is it just me?

We have been told that thoughts generate emotions, which cause reactions, both internal (bodily sensations) and behavioral. What if it was the other way around?

This is the theory of Williams James and Carles Lange. They propose that the cerebral cortex receives and interprets sensory stimuli that elicit emotions, producing changes in visceral organs via the autonomic nervous system and in skeletal muscles via the somatic nervous system.

Or more simply. I don’t cry because I’m sad, I’m sad because I cry.

The truth is that there is no certainty.

There are theories and studies that lean one way or another. But what we can say is that neuroscience is advancing more and more, and we realize that this duality of mind, body, emotion is fading.

We end up with a body-mind. There are the bands (what covers our muscles), which host memories and tensions.

Body workout

There are surprising cases in organ transplantation. There is evidence of the impact of posture on emotion and cognition, of the connection between brain and gut, brain and heart, brain and breath.

Antonio Damasio, neuroscientist, ensures that until we understand the movement of our body, we will not understand our emotions.

Yet many coaches continue to work on the emotion from words, questions, reason.

To work on emotions, and especially on those that hold you back, there is a much more powerful tool: the body.

The body is the gateway to your subconscious mind. And no, it’s not just about dancing, going for a run, changing posture or breathing while paying attention to how you feel.

All of this will help you on many occasions, but on others, for there to be real progress and transformation, we need to go a little deeper.

But how do you do it? Well, work your body first.

Learn to listen to it, to get out of your head and simply feel, to understand that your body doesn’t communicate with words, it communicates with sensations, which sometimes turn into images, intuitions, symptoms…

Explore and become aware of your own “body habits”; be aware of your “messages”; perhaps a slight tension in the stomach… perhaps heat on the forehead…

And by observing, moving, exploring, feeling… one day you will be able to anticipate the emotional rapture, letting your body (not your emotion) decide what it needs to adjust organically for you and for the rest.

Once you have learned this “language”, you will be able to connect, understand and accompany others, asking perhaps the most powerful questions there are, those that do not need words.